My Cheerleader, My World
by Viv1
Summary: Claire Bennet is here to save the world, but for her, the world is Peter Petrelli. Peter and Claire friendship, UST. AU after 1.11 Fallout. Updated for Chapter 17, which means this story is now COMPLETE.
1. Prologue

**My Cheerleader, My World **

**by ****Viv**

Summary: "My name is Claire Bennet, and I am here to save the world."

Characters: Peter/Claire (only friendship at this stage)

Spoilers: Up to 1.11 Fallout. Also attempts to incorporate some spoilers for upcoming episodes.

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, just borrowing. All NBC's and Tim Kring's. Please don't sue!

Author's Notes: This is my first Heroes fanfic, although I have written extensively in other fandoms. Hope it pleases!

Feedback always welcomed and craved.

"**Prologue"**

My name is Claire Bennet, and I am here to save the world.

That may sound a little melodramatic, but given that I am not typically melodramatic (nor narcissistic I hope) that statement holds some water. Someone was told once, to save "the cheerleader, save the world."

That was the beginning of our journey. I have met so many of Us along the way. Ordinary people gifted with extraordinary abilities, forced into doing extraordinary things. Heroic things. And sometimes suffering unfairly for it along the way.

I have been luckier than most. After all, I'm alive aren't I? Everyone one of Us has suffered for our abilities. By necessity and for survival we have formed a loose association of sorts, coming together as often as necessary to uphold our responsibility with the powers gifted to us. As a wise man from a comic book once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

I took a while learning that one, accessing my inner geek in the process. And while I know now it came straight out of the pages of another superhero's mantra, I learnt that one from my best friend. My perfect other.

He joked once that I was _his _cheerleader, on account of having saved me that first time, such a long time ago now. He says it now as a term of endearment, a crazy little in joke we have to the exclusion of the world. It is meant half in jest and half in earnestness, a little something to remind both of us of how we came to be. It's his way of reminding me that although so many bad things have happened to both of us, there's still hope because we are still here. Us. Because that is the kind of person Peter Petrelli is.

If only he knew. I am saying this in all earnestness now within the confines of my own mind, because that is the kind of person I have become, because of him.

I am his cheerleader, but he is my world.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

"**The Beginning"**

Claire Bennet shifted uncomfortably on the couch. It was lumpy and she suspected that she wasn't the first visitor to grace this well-worn structure (for lack of a better word, she really didn't have the mental capacity to think that clearly at the moment), but as her mother often said, beggars can't be choosers. And right now, she was darn near being a beggar.

She counted herself lucky though. If it hadn't been for Peter Petrelli, she would have been dead 3 weeks ago.

That night – she knew it was Sylar now – haunts her relentlessly. Funny how often she had tried to commit the deed in the past few months, getting frustrated by her repeated and persistent attempts at not dying. Even went so far as to get Zach to video tape her committing 'suicides' by very imaginative ways, yet the moment her death had become a possibility, she had been truly, horrifyingly scared.

Her heart seemed to clang with the emptiness that her brief friendship with Zach had left behind. She hoped he was all right. She understood from the Haitian that Zach no longer had any memory of their recent times together, and Claire ached at that, but that was okay. At least Zach was alive. At least Lyle was alive. It was a small price to pay to guarantee their safety, even if they would never realise the steep nature of that price.

Funny how almost getting her head sliced open put things into perspective for Claire. It was such a stupid thing to say, but she had realised for the first time in the aftermath of Jackie's death just how wondrous and incredible her ability to heal was. Instead of turning her into a social pariah, a freak of gigantic proportions, it was what had enabled her to save Peter.

She hadn't been completely sure about it at first. How else to explain his sudden recovery after the fall? Then, when she had secretly come to his bedside at the hospital, him waking up from his coma? Both times, she had been by his side. Claire was sure that was the first time she had woken up to the idea that maybe her ability wasn't so bad after all. It had allowed her to return a favour to Peter – that surely couldn't have been a bad thing.

There hadn't been enough time afterwards to fully process what had happened to her. Almost getting killed, Peter, her dad, the Haitian – pieces of a complex puzzle moving in such quick succession, it was all she could do to remain neutral. Unaware. Ignorant. Don't rock the boat.

But it had gotten too much. Pretending her father that she retained no memories of the traumatic events of the last few weeks, pretending to the very person who had betrayed her memories, had been too much. She was bound to slip up, and now that she had, she was scared of the repercussions, scared of the lengths her dad would now go to protect her.

She knew her father genuinely cared about her. It was the only thing Claire now trusted about her life. Wiping the memories of herself, her mother, brother and best friend of two weeks had been what he thought was the best way to protect her from Sylar. She knew that. But nevertheless, she couldn't stop the rising stench of betrayal that assailed her every time she saw her father's sunny smile. She couldn't stomach his slightly questioning gaze every time he looked at her, as if to ask, "Do you remember?"

And so she had hurriedly packed, stuffed her most loyal friend and companion into the bottom of her duffel bag and prayed that Peter hadn't decided to move.

She had got his address when she had visited him in hospital. The days her father had thought she spent reorganising the cheerleading squad after Jackie's death had instead been spent at Peter's bedside. She had received sympathetic looks from Ms Crenshaw when she confided to her that she needed a few extra days to recover from the death of her best friend. She hadn't missed very many classes, and since she had not exhibited any other more serious signs of grief, her father had not been contacted about her missing cheerleading practice for a few days.

She had quivered the first time she saw him, lying brittle against the bed, the pallor of his skin so pronounced against the stark whiteness of the hospital bed sheets. It had taken all her remaining strength to not break down in tears right then, to see her hero lying battered and broken all because he had journeyed to save her. The cheerleader.

She had burned her uniform that night. But she couldn't get rid of it – she had many more replacements in her wardrobe.

A man had sometimes joined her bed side vigil. She had met him before, at the police station, just before she had been allowed to see Peter in his cell. Officer Matt Parkman. Sometimes she glimpsed his partner, the woman that had interviewed her about Jackie's death. Claire wished that she hadn't listened to her father and had just told the truth to them – the whole truth – about what had happened that night. She had wondered whether it would have helped save Peter in any way.

Matt had been kind, sometimes offering her coffee and little snacks to enable her to stay at Peter's side. He had nice, warm, kind brown eyes, and Claire had been grateful for his almost instinctive understanding of her need to be with Peter. He had also been kind enough to not contact her father about her frequent visits when she had asked him to. He had smiled a secretive little smile and pressed his cell number into her hand. "Just in case."

Claire found that she couldn't be with Peter for long periods of time – she had to factor in the trip to the hospital and the time her father would get back from work – but she did what she could. She caught a break a few days after she started going to Peter when her dad announced that he would be making one of his regular trips to Portland for work.

Claire knew better now, and doubted that Portland was his true destination. She had doubted every word that came out of her father's mouth since that fateful day.

The longer period she spent with Peter seemed to do the trick – he had woken up.

The first thing that had alerted Claire to his returning consciousness was the tight squeezing of her hand in his. Groggy and weak from his extended convalescence, he had croaked out. "Hey. You're here."

A tear had escaped, coursing down her cheek. "Yeah. I'm glad you're alive."

She had quickly blurted everything out then, everything that had happened to her since they had last met. Looking back she knew that it had been selfish to just unburden herself on him – the guy had just come out of a coma for goodness sakes – but he was the only one she could turn to. "My dad, he –he goes around looking for people with – with abilities – and he studies them then has their minds wiped by this guy, and he's tried to do it once before, but it didn't work. I didn't tell you about him because I didn't want your mind wiped too." Despite how her words sounded to her own ears, Claire knew that Peter had not doubted anything she had said.

After that day, her dad seemed to sense that something was not quite right. He had taken some days off work and stayed resolutely at home, his presence making Claire want to bang her head against the walls in frustration. But she grasped the last little secret closer to her chest, and had been glad that Peter had the foresight to give her his address and details at their last meeting.

He had given it to her as she was putting her jacket back on, a bright blue velvet hoodie that she had loved to feel against her skin. He had pressed it earnestly into her hand, saying with that wonderful, calm voice of his. "This is my address, a way to contact me. Let me know if you change your mind about coming with me."

"I can't go to New York." Claire had whispered, but wishing she could have. She felt too young, too … weak. She had to stay in Odessa, and she hadn't had the courage to go with him then.

But now she did. She had no choice.

The trip from Odessa to New York didn't seem so epic on the map, but venturing into the world beyond Odessa gave Claire the chills. It was the first time she had travelled by herself so far away from home.

"Do you want a soda? Some juice or something?" Peter's voice startled her out of her thoughts.

"What? No, it's okay. I'm doing just fine here."

An awkward pause. To him, she had randomly showed up at his apartment an hour before, no doubt looking hideous and dishevelled, due to the regrettable fact that she had left her brush and other quite necessary necessities at home. It also probably didn't help that she hadn't bothered to notify him of her impending arrival, a fact that she was alerted to when he answered the door in boxer shorts and hastily pulling a t-shirt over his torso. But what could she have done? One stray word, email or phone call from her would have alerted her father to her destination.

Peter settled onto the couch next to her, tousling his mass of sleek black hair. His eyes were still slightly droopy, evidence of having been woken up from mid-sleep. "Claire, do you mind if I ask what you're doing here? I mean, did anything happen?"

Nothing and everything happened. She couldn't do it alone anymore, that's what happened. Claire was almost ashamed to admit that she was so used to being taken care of that all she wanted now was for someone to do just that – take care of her. Her father – someone who she had always trusted before to that – had betrayed her. There was no one left but Peter. That was what happened.

Peter's piercing black eyes were still trained on her, so she had a feeling that she should at least grace his question with an answer. "I didn't know where else to go." Off his questioning look, she blurted out. "My dad found out about me."

He understood and nodded, brushing his hair off his face. "You'll need a place to stay." It wasn't so much a question as a statement, just confirming what they both already knew.

"If I could?"

"Sure." He smiled his genuinely warm smile, all friendliness and crinkled dark eyes, and Claire was reminded anew why she had trusted him in the first place. Before he had showed he was willing to die for her, before they had even exchanged more than the cursory words of acquaintance when they had serendipitously collided in the halls of her school, she had a pleasantly sneaking suspicion that she could trust the man sitting next to her now. That seemed so long ago. "If only to give my brother a coronary."

She was able to smile then, her first genuine smile in a long, long time. "Thanks Peter, I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for saving me." If she wasn't quite as successful as she liked in keeping some of the quivering emotion out of her voice, and if she was blinking suspicious tears out of her eyes, he was kind enough to pretend not to notice.

"A guy from the future sent me to protect you. I'll always be here to do that." He brushed his fingers lightly over hers, just enough to emphasise his presence. Smiling crookedly, he joked. "Not sure about the sleeping arrangements, but we'll work something out."

"I'll take the couch." She said in a rush. Claire wasn't sure about the exact etiquette of crashing at a place of someone she barely knew, but separating the poor guy from his bed seemed like a bad idea, especially since he just had a traumatic health event. "Seriously, it's not a big deal. I'm … smaller than you and I'd fit much better on the couch than, you know, you would."

He chuckled, the expression crinkling his dark eyes. "I don't think so." He stood and hauled her duffel bag over his shoulder, shoving her lightly in brotherly fashion towards a door that Claire could only assume lead to his room. "You take the bed until I work something else out. Now dump your stuff in my room and I'll …" He yawned loudly, catching himself with a self-conscious grin. " … make some coffee. Get some breakfast for us. Bagels sound good?"


	3. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

"**Meet New York"**

"You have a what living at your place?! Jesus Peter, at least tell me she's not underage." Peter had long since gotten used to holding the receiver at a comfortable distance whenever Nathan was in the middle of delivering one of his customary tirades. The key, he had discovered long ago, was to just take whatever Nathan threw at him and not be goaded into any retaliatory verbiage of his own.

"Nathan, for the last time, she's not living, _living _with me." Peter repeated patiently, careful to keep his tone even. "She's crashing here because she has nowhere else to go. She's in danger, and I'm going to take care of her like I'm supposed to."

Nathan swore loudly at the other end – so loudly in fact, that Peter wouldn't have been surprised if Claire was able to hear his egomaniacal brother from where she was sitting in his bedroom.

He wasn't exactly sure what Nathan was saying but one thing he knew – congressional candidates running on a platform of family values sure wouldn't be using these kind of words on their campaign posters any time soon. " … tell me she's over 16 at least. That's the magic age, some states legalise marriage at 16 –"

"For God's sakes Nathan, shut up." He hadn't meant to snap at his brother. If he was going to keep Claire safe, he needed his brother's help – or his money, preferably both – to do it. "I'm just giving you a head's up for your campaign. I'm sure you can make up some story about what your crazy brother's up to now." A slight creak from behind the door told him that Claire was no doubt eavesdropping on at least Peter's end of the conversation, a conversation she didn't need to hear. The poor girl had been through enough. "Look, I can't talk right now, I'll call you later."

Peter's suspicion that Claire had been eavesdropping proved correct, as she poked her head through the door only a second after he hung up on his brother. Feigning only a casual level interest, she asked curiously. "What was all that about?"

"My brother, the soon to be Congressman Nathan Petrelli." Peter waved his hand at what he imagined to be his brother's direction. "Being the biggest jerk this side of Manhattan."

"Is it going to be a problem?" Claire asked quietly in her slight Texan drawl, absently twirling a strand of sun-kissed blond hair. "About my staying here?"

"No." Peter replied a little too quickly. He didn't lie very well at the best of times, and it was especially hard in the face of Claire's innocent trust in him. God, she was still so young, yet here she was in New York by herself, world weary, scared and battered at 17. It was clear that things had happened to her, bad things, and she was barely keeping it together. He didn't want to add to her burdens. He had to protect her at all costs. "Nathan's … stupid."

"I think I got that part. Many times." Claire laughed, her blue eyes twinkling merrily, worries momentarily forgotten.

The next day Peter found himself sitting with Claire on the roof of his apartment building enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. It had been a beautiful, albeit slightly chilly fall day and Claire had expressed more than a passing inclination of sitting outside in the sun. And since Peter was currently between jobs, she had politely asked whether he would mind sitting with her. He had pretended not to notice the loneliness in her voice, and had suggested they spend the afternoon introducing her to New York.

They had gone to Bloomingdales first, where he had expected squeals of excitement from the teenage girl but instead received only a muted "wow" at the brightly lit store displays. Triple choc-chip ice cream in Central Park fared a little better, and Peter noted with satisfaction the brilliant smile that appeared on her face as the sun streamed through the leafy golden branches.

When she smiled like that, Peter noticed, it was easy to imagine the girl she had been before everything had started. He had also found it easier then to loosen up.

Ever since he had awoken from his coma in Odessa, there had only been one thing on his mind. He had not forgotten his dream – likely to be prophetic – that one day soon, he would, in less elegant terms, blow up New York. Thoughts of his final few moments in the dream, with people running away from him – Nathan, Claire, Matt Parkman, Mohinder Suresh were the only people he recognised – were enough to make him hurl the entire contents of his stomach night after night. They had caused him restless weeks of worry, anxiety, and although he was working with Mohinder now to come up with a solution, one that they were close to, that shadow was constantly at the back of his mind.

November 8. That was the day the world ended. It was exactly one week from today.

Claire's unexpected arrival had provided him almost with a welcome relief from the unease plaguing his thoughts.

Peter had also realised that part of his tension had been him subconsciously mirroring the small blonde's anxiety to the point where he too had been wound tight as a drum. Having realised this he was able to shake it off, however fleetingly.

Gesturing magnificently, he had grandly introduced Claire to his city. "New York, meet Claire Bennet. Claire Bennet, New York." They had gone back to his apartment after that, where Peter continued to contemplate the exact dimensions of their living arrangements as a way to distract himself from other, more unpleasant thoughts of New York and Petrelli holocausts.

Although his brother had accused him of still being that 'kid who sat at the back of the class and daydreamed', he was aware enough of the world to know that Nathan had a point, regardless of the way his brother had chosen to enunciate it. Although these were extraordinary circumstances, a 17 year old girl – a runaway no less – could not live with a 24 year old man without raising a few eyebrows, even at the most anonymous of times. And with Nathan running for congress and "outing" Peter's fictitious mental health issues, their anonymity had already been lost.

So in summary, even if – and this was a big _if _– he managed to avoid exploding into tiny little Peter pieces all over New York City, there would still be that tiny but not insignificant issue of how Claire would live with him. Peter was in no doubt that he had to be around her to protect her. He had no idea why, but he felt an almost otherworldly compulsion to be around the tiny Texan cheerleader.

"What're you thinking about?" Claire's voice lulled him back to the present.

Peter gave a slight shake of his head. He had decided the night before that if he was to take his role as Claire's protector seriously, he would have to lay down some ground rules. Firstly, he was never going to lie to her. No matter how dire things would become or how horrific they would be for her to contemplate, Peter was a big supporter of just telling the plain truth. Claire was young, but she also had a right to know why all this was happening to her. While none of them had the answers to their origins just yet, it would not have been fair to treat her like less than she was. His decision had been cemented when he had heard her story in more detail about the man known as the Haitian, capable of erasing the memories of anyone he chose. Seeing her terror at the thought of having her memories erased – even more than the terror of being chased down by a homicidal maniac Peter suspected – had confirmed to him that this was the best way to go. Although he felt guilty about not divulging his unsettling dream concerning his impending doom, he figured it didn't directly concern her – yet.

And so when Claire asked a question, he would (generally) answer it to the best of his ability. "Our living arrangements." Peter answered quietly, his gaze still fixed on the Manhattan cityscape.

"I meant what I said yesterday Peter. I know it's asking a lot of you …"

"No." He quickly interrupted. "It's not that." He elaborated, fixing his eyes onto hers. "Nathan's a politician. He's not going to let this go, he'll do something … to 'fix' the situation. He always thinks he's going to clean up after my messes. I'll think of a way to get around it."

He tried giving her a reassuring smile, but her equally unsure response told him yet again that he was a terrible, terrible liar. "I'm sorry to be this much trouble."

Peter had only been around Claire one day, yet he already hated the look of brokenness that seemed to regularly surface in her normally bright blue eyes. The juxtaposition of such dread and aching loneliness just seemed too stark against the marks that her happy childhood had left behind. "Hey, it's no trouble. Don't ever think that, okay?"

Peter knew he was being slightly dorky with the earnestness – could there be a worse mantra than 'save the cheerleader, save the world'? But if this was his mission, if _this_ was why he had been given his powers, then by God he would carry it out to the best of his abilities. "Did you get settled in all right?" He asked abruptly, changing the subject.

A surprising little giggle escaped from her mouth. Off what must have been his perplexed look, she flushed. "I'm sorry, I was poking around trying to find some clean sheets and I accidentally took out one of your drawers, clean off the hinges." Off Peter's still uncomprehending look, she elaborated, trying to re-enact her actions at the same time. "You know, I kinda ripped it out and tried to push it back in, and it was … um, just …" The red flush that had started with her face now steadily crept down her neck. "It was your underwear drawer. And … you have X-Men boxers?"

Peter did a quick intake of breath before colouring slightly himself. "Uh, yeah. Looks like I'm gonna have to clear out some space for you in my underwear drawer, huh?" He teased. 

There it was again, that cute little giggle that only teenage girls did. "That's okay, I think I can cope with not ever seeing that again." Her eyes travelled down his body slightly, prompting Peter to frown a little. He had momentarily forgotten that she was still slightly too young.

They went back downstairs soon after that. Peter made good on his promise to cook them waffles – yes, waffles for dinner – which seemed to brighten Claire's manner even more. And then after dinner, to his surprise, she had pushed him out of the way and started matter-of-factly washing the dishes. He looked down at her blond head in a mixture of astonishment and consternation. "You don't have to do that." Peter said pointedly.

She turned on the tap and soon water was running merrily into the sink. "No, I want to." Rummaging around his cupboards, she asked brightly. "Do you have gloves or anything. You know, to protect my hands?" She took his dumb-founded look as a no. "Okay then, I guess you don't." Still needing to elbow him out of the way, Claire continued. "Don't look so surprised Peter. I may be a spoilt little Texas cheerleader, but I know how to behave like a proper guest." Her smile dipped a little, her sincerity breaking through the thin veneer of normality in her features. "It's the least I do for all you've done for me."

Peter quickly turned off the tap and instinctively covered his hand with hers. "Hey." He turned her reluctantly to face him. "I don't ever want you to feel like you owe me anything. You don't. I'm just doing my bit to save the world." He gave her a lopsided smile, hoping to dispel some of the seriousness that had settled between them.

"It's just that …" Her lip started trembling. "You saved me. You saved my life and I don't think I'll ever to be able to repay you. And I can't … I don't know why all this is happening to me. It's … I tried _so hard _to die, and when I thought I was going to …" Her entire body was shaking now, and Peter carefully placed both hands on her shoulders in an attempt to steady her, making shushing noises. " … I was so scared. And I wanted my dad to protect me and take me home and he wasn't supposed to be like he is, he's supposed to be my dad and protect me from bad things and not wipe memories and take away people's friends and family and …" She broke down, and if Peter hadn't been there to hold her against him she would have sunk to the floor.

She sobbed painfully into his chest, great heaving heart broken sobs that chased everything from his body except the need, now intensified a thousand fold, to protect her. And this time, he wouldn't be protecting her to save the world. He would be protecting Claire Bennet because she had turned to him in her hour of need, and Peter would not fail her – even if it was the last thing he ever did.


	4. Chapter Three

**My Cheerleader, My World**

**By Viv**

**Chapter Three**

"**The Others"**

Claire looked up from the book that Zach had given to her, the chapter on spontaneous regeneration finished at last. Never a quick reader, the complexity of the language had meant that reading it had taken longer than usual.

"I haven't met Isaac or any of the others yet." Her request was so sudden it stopped Peter in his tracks. Although he appeared to be idly scanning the pages of the New York Times, he had not been concentrating judging from the faraway look in his dark eyes. She guessed that the abstractness may have been owing to his conversation with Isaac and Hiro that morning.

He jerked his head out from behind the newspaper, his bangs flopping over the side of his face. Claire resisted the urge to tease him about his comic book hair. "I mean, I've been in New York two days now and it's been great, and I haven't had to worry about anything, but …"

"But you need to know what everything's about." Peter finished off her sentence.

"Yeah." She replied quietly, biting her lip absently. "I need to know why you had to save me. Why I'm so … Why you all think I'm so important."

Peter gave her a lopsided grin. "Save the cheerleader, save the world."

"But what am I to the world?" There was that question again.

The smile disappeared from his face, replaced by thoughtfulness that somehow seemed to line his features, making them appear more defined. "I'm not sure. But I guess we'll find out soon."

"Peter?" She placed the book down quickly, bridging the gap between them. Her steaming cup of coffee lay unsipped on the table. "What's going on? What's going to happen?"

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. She had detected that he had been keeping something from her the past few days, something important. Claire trusted Peter that it hadn't been anything to do with her, but suspected that it had something directly to do with Peter himself. Something serious. "What do you mean?"

His eyes, usually so honest and open, were now uncharacteristically withdrawn, telling Claire that her hunch had been correct. There _was _something wrong. "You've been keeping something from me. Something big. To do with you." She blurted, her eyes keen.

He sighed, closing the newspaper carefully before answering. Peter paused for so long that Claire began wondering whether he was ever going to begin at all. "I had a dream. Actually I keep on having the same dream. " He corrected himself. "Ever since I collapsed in Odessa. I've had this dream. I've had dreams like this before. They were real."

He told her all about his dream, and Claire believed – trusted – that he hadn't left any details out. When he got to the part about Claire running away from him just before his explosion, she exclaimed aloud. "I would never do that!" Peter seemed taken aback by the ferocity of her reaction. "I would _never _do that Peter. I wouldn't ever run away from you."

"But Claire." He explained patiently, performing the now familiar gesture of encasing his hand in hers. Once again, his touch seemed to calm her fraying nerves. "It was going to …" He couldn't bring himself to say the words aloud, even now. "There wasn't anything you could do."

It was interesting that he was already talking about it in the past tense, like it had already happened. Claire would give anything in the world to stop that from happening to him. Her hero. She gasped, furiously blinking back tears despite her yearning to be strong. "You're already talking about it like it's going to happen. Like it can't be stopped."

"No." Peter shook his head, brushing jet black tendrils from his face. "No. I've been working with Mohinder and the others – they want to stop me – this – as much as I do. There's something, I think, we're close. It's just …"

"What?"

"We're running out of time."

A sense of dread descended on her, snaking though her like some vile, loathsome disease. "When?" She asked flatly.

He paused a little, as if steeling himself for the answer. "November 8."

"But that's five days from now!" Peter smiled brokenly, and she realised at that moment she had found another reason to be here in New York. She had come to seek salvation from him because he had believed it had been mission to save her. But now she had found a mission of her own – help the others to save Peter. "How do you stop an exploding man?" She whispered weakly, then laughed a little at her own words.

Peter's face remained stony, outwardly mirroring her anxiety. "We don't know. But I'm going to try."

He had taken her to meet the others then, in a slightly roach infested apartment that Claire would have protested finding herself in a month ago, but now she barely noticed dried brown marks staining the unpolished wooden floors of Isaac Mendez's apartment. Peter had explained on the way that Isaac had found his old studio ransacked when he had returned to New York with Hiro and Ando in tow.

And so it was that Claire Bennet first met those that would later have such a huge impact on her life.

She was so nervous at first she felt like hiding behind Peter, like she used to hide behind her dad when she was little and couldn't handle being around strangers who gave her smiles and little pats on the head. That memory brought her to her senses, and she refused to be cowed by her own fear of the unknown. "Hi." She muttered shyly, staring at the others as they gawked at her.

Peter shifted awkwardly, clearing his throat. His hands were dipped into his jacket pockets, and the blue shirt he had worn was slightly crumpled in the places that he had obviously forgotten to iron. It was an odd thing to notice at this time, but Claire was finding that she had been noticing odd things since she had come to New York, especially about Peter.

For example, Claire noticed that the way Peter habitually wore his jackets was with the collars turned up covering his neck and the sleeves always slightly too long for his arms. He favoured black pants over more casual jeans, but he had a stack of concert t-shirts stashed away in his wardrobe. He kept his apartment cleaner and tidier than she thought guys customarily kept their own places, although Claire admitted that she had never really been in a man's apartment before, so what did she know? He liked bagels and fresh coffee in the morning, and she was still getting used to the fact that people like Peter who lived in New York went out every morning to get breakfast, rather than having their moms cook them fresh pancakes or waffles at home before they went out. His lower lipped drooped which he had explained was due to a birth defect, but secretly she thought it made him look rather unusual and a little out of the ordinary. Special.

He also had racking cough that he couldn't seem to shake, and a rampant headache that Claire had tried to alleviate by getting him some chamomile tea from the drug store on the corner. She wasn't quite sure how much that had helped.

Had she gotten all that about him in just a couple of days?

"So you're the cheerleader." A tall, smiling man stepped forward, his shirt stained slightly with paint smears. His enigmatic brown eyes were partly shield by the mass of wavy brown hair that fell over his face, but it didn't obscure his piercing gaze as he stared openly at her.

Claire smiled in return. "Yeah. That's me. You're Isaac?" She extended her hand dumbly. She had never really been in the habit of shaking people's hands before, but in this slightly more sombre situation it somehow seemed right. Also, she had been taught that this was the most polite thing to do.

He nodded, quickly taking her hand in his. "Yes I am. It's really good to meet you Claire."

"Hallo." The shorter Japanese man greeted her more exuberantly than Isaac. This must be Hiro, the guy who could bend time and space. Claire still wasn't quite sure what that meant.

"Hi." She tried smiling brightly, noticing from the corner of her eye that Peter was greeting a beautiful woman that had just come through the door.

"Pleased to meet you, Cheerleader Claire. We're going to save the world." Claire tried not being taken aback by Hiro's enthusiasm, but it was hard for her to not instinctively shy away from his eagerness. But it was also hard to not like the earnest cheeriness, the obvious and steadfast belief he had in his somewhat astounding declaration.

"Hi. You must be Hiro, the guy who can bend time and space." Claire gave a little embarrassed laugh, trying to not stare too openly at the beautiful woman that now approached them with Peter. "Peter's tried to explain it to me, but I'm still not sure what that means." She was also a little embarrassed to admit she had a little trouble deciphering what he was saying through his thick Japanese accent, and that made her act a little nicer than usual.

She was quickly introduced to the others, including Ando, Hiro's friend and companion, Mohinder, an Indian man who she later would discover was the son of the guy whose book she was reading, and Simone, the beautiful woman that Peter had just greeted.

"Hi." Simone said warmly, her shrewd gaze shifting quickly between Peter and Claire. "Peter's told me a lot about you."

"Oh … really?" Claire hoped her voice wasn't as squeaky to the others as it sounded to her. Meeting them all – these heroes – made it so clear to her how young she was, how unready, how untried.

"Really, and it's nice to meet you at last." Off Claire's questioning look, she explained. "We've been through a lot trying to save you."

Isaac stepped in, placing a warm hand around Simone's shoulders. A look of surprise betrayed Claire for a second, but she covered it up quickly. From the way Peter had greeted Simone, she thought they were … something. Not that it was any of her business. "And now you're here."

"Now we have to save the world." The smile dropped off Hiro's face, replaced with a look of determination.

"How do you stop an exploding man?" Claire asked quietly, her words echoing eerily around the room.

They all turned towards Peter, with a desperate mix of despair and hope on his face.

It turned out that Mohinder and Peter had been trying to work on a cure the past few weeks, something that would disable Peter's ability to absorb other people's powers. But they were having trouble getting it to work, and time was quickly running out for all of them.

"There's also Claude." Peter murmured quietly.

"Whose Claude?" Claire asked curiously. Peter had never mentioned this guy before.

"An invisible man." Isaac smirked into the glass of water Simone had just handed to him. Claire waited for someone to contradict him, but seeing as no one did, she was forced to conclude that Isaac meant literally invisible instead of … well, imaginary.

Simone came around with a soda which Claire gratefully accepted. "Thanks. Um, is he invisible because you've all never met him, or just plain old … invisible?"

"He's shy around strangers. Plus, he's invisible." Peter added, almost as an after thought. He addressed the others. "Look, he's been teaching me how to block … things. Block abilities from my radar."

"And is it working?" Mohinder asked pointedly. Which was a fair enough question.

"Yes." Peter amended. "Sort of." Off their incredulous looks, he clarified. Claire noted that he had studiously avoided Simone's eyes the entire time she had been in the room. "It works, sometimes. Sometimes it works a little bit. It's … different every time."

"I have a question." Claire interjected, hoping no one would think of her as overly rude. She was the newcomer to this select band of heroes-in-the-making and the youngest by far to boot, but she was also becoming compulsive about wanting to help Peter. The others giving him the third degree couldn't have been helping. She took their silence as acquiescence. "What is it exactly that's going to make him … you know." She motioned blowing up with her hands.

Mohinder shrugged. "We're still not sure." The lankly man leaned against the edge of the couch. "We think it may have something to do with an overload of Peter's sensory system. His biological mimicry – absorbing people's powers in cross proximity – is getting too much for his body to deal with."

He sat down, using his hands to emphasise his point while the others stared intently at him. "Imagine the human body, a finely calibrated machine composed of ticking parts and unique chemical compositions. You can get sick because a new biological agent – a virus – is introduced into that finely calibrated machine. But that is only one virus. Imagine tens or hundreds of viruses, slowly assaulting the host, taking a mixture of tolls on that single body. The body is a remarkable machine. It can recover. But with so many different areas to recuperate, it will reach a maximum, a threshold. After that, it starts breaking down, decaying before its ready. The calibration of that machine will break down. If this happens quick enough, it will trigger a violent … reaction."

"Oh." Claire paused quietly. When Mohinder explained it like that, it sounded … a lot more serious. "What's been done?"

"I'm developing something. A vaccine of sorts. It's not a permanent solution, but it should help."

"But it doesn't work yet." Up until now, Simone had stayed quiet, content to listen in on the intense discussion. Even though it appeared to Claire that she was with Isaac, her concern for Peter rang clear in the older woman's voice. "And we're running out of time."

"We can't let him die." Claire gritted out. She knew that she had only just met these people and they probably all thought of her as a helpless schoolgirl – cheerleader – but she didn't care. Jackie had died for Claire's abilities and that had to be something of worth she could offer.

"We won't." Isaac said calmly. "There's a lot of things we can do."

"Like what?"

"I can …" Hiro said something intelligible which Claire presumed was Japanese. His friend Ando spoke to him haltingly before Hiro turned back to her. "Teleporto. I can teleport Peter out of the city."

"To where?" All she got were blank looks, and it was clear to Claire that they hadn't solved that particular problem out yet.

"Can I help?" She asked suddenly. Off their searching looks, she explained. "My ability is the power to heal."

"Spontaneous regeneration." Mohinder said, his eyes afire with curiosity and wonder.

"Ah, yeah. When …" Here she glanced at Peter, who gave a tight wink in return. "When Peter saved me from Sylar, they went off the roof. His legs … his body … he was dead. But then I came and …"

"And he was able to absorb your healing power and stay alive." Mohinder surmised.

"Not only that." Claire rushed on, eager to finish her train of thought. "I've been thinking about this, and Peter only got better when I was around him. When I went to get the police, I thought … he was okay. And then I heard he'd collapsed in front the station and … I think I should have been around him longer. It would have made him heal more fully. Instead he only got better for a while and it wasn't until I was able to stay around him longer that I think he got okay."

"When were you around him again?" Simone asked curiously.

Claire bit her lip, embarrassed by the slow flush creeping over her face. Why was she embarrassed by this for goodness sakes? A man's life was at stake. "I snuck off cheerleading practice to visit Peter in the hospital. No one knew."

That reminded Claire of something she had totally forgotten but had meant to talk to Peter about. "Peter, I almost forgot about the man at the hospital."

Peter rushed forward, concern etched on his face. "What man?"

"There was a man. Matt Parkman. He was one of the officers who interviewed me after Jackie died. He visited you almost as much as I did."

"Wait, was this guy medium height? Kind of heavy set, brown hair?"

"Yeah, he was … wait a minute, he left me his cell." She dug through her pockets frantically. She had been wearing the same jacket since she had left Odessa but luckily for her, it was also the same one she had worn to the hospital to visit Peter.

Peter stared transfixed at the small card. "Peter, what's wrong?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Just that I think this guy read my mind."

"You mean he's a telepath?" Mohinder said quickly. Claire found it refreshing that he didn't even bother to ask the ubiquitous 'are you sure' before delving further. She could get used to being around people like this – people like her.

"Yeah, I think so."

"This doesn't really help us." Isaac reminded them softly. "The immediate danger is …" They all turned towards Peter, who blanched at the attention.

An awkward silence settled on them. Claire bit her lip in frustration. While it was clear that these remarkable group of people had bent their minds to saving Peter, they were still no closer to finding a solution to his problem. And time was running out.

"Okay, we at least know what the worst case scenario is." Peter's voice rang out in the silence.

"What's that?" Claire asked curiously, noting the uncomfortable expressions on the other's faces. "What?"

"I go away somewhere. Far away. Where I wouldn't be able to … hurt anyone."

"But you would …" She couldn't even finish the sentence off, it was too awful to contemplate. She whipped around, shooting the others an accusatory stare. "What, that's the final solution? Just let Peter –"

"No, of course not. That's just the worse case …"

Claire rushed hastily to Peter, looking up at him with imploring eyes. "What if I come with you? At the final moment, when … whatever happens to you, I'll be able to stop it. You can use my ability to heal any damage that's been done to you. You can do it, you came back from the dead with me around, I can save you." Knowing how she must sound to the others, she amended quickly. "I can save us."

His dark piercing eyes registered her passion and concern. Placing his hands on her shoulders tightly, he said kindly. "I'm not sure whether that will be enough. If I'm not sure … I can't risk you being around me."

Mohinder looked from Claire to Peter, noting the shift in mood the room had taken. "Claire, everything's being done. I've accessed my father's research on genetic mutations and anomalies. He began doing tests with willing subjects. We're on track."

"And Claude's being doing a lot of work with Peter." Simone added quietly, stepping forward. The deep seated concern she saw in the older woman's eyes mirrored Claire's, which calmed her down a little. "We know how important this is."

Claire silently agreed. It was important. It was about saving Peter Petrelli's life. 


	5. Chapter Four

"**My Cheerleader, My World"**

**by Viv**

**Chapter Four **

"**On the edge" **

Peter smiled wryly as he picked up the book Claire had left open on the counter that morning, the chapter on telepathy and telekinesis held with a bookmark swathed in teddy bears.

Claire had agreed to stay with the others while he had met with Claude for another session that afternoon. Simone had promised to get Claire safely back to Peter's apartment.

His session with Claude had left him drained and frankly, dejected. He thought he had been making good progress to control his abilities, but progress wasn't going to prevent him from exploding into tiny Petrelli pieces all over New York City. Progress wasn't going to save him, and it wasn't going to save New York.

It was a little hard to maintain hope, seeing his own death approaching like a freight train hurtling towards him with unimaginable speed.

He sighed, still holding the book in his hands. Staring at the back cover, he stared intently at the photo of Chandra Suresh, a visionary way ahead of his time. He wondered what Chandra would have made of all the people Peter had met in the last few weeks, all people with special abilities. People like him.

He remembered a conversation he had once with Mohinder regarding the genetic basis of their abilities. Mohinder had surmised that as the abilities were really due to abnormalities in their genetic make-up, it made sense that these same abnormalities would recur in people in the same family. "Like me and Nathan." Peter concluded.

Mohinder had nodded. "But as you and Nathan are the only brothers I've come across, it's hard to tell whether my supposition is correct."

Keys turning in the door drew Peter out of his thoughts. Claire appeared to almost bounce into the room, energetic golden curls flying behind her. Simone greeted him warmly, if a little distantly. Their brief relationship and her getting back with Isaac had made them both a little careful around each other. It was still painful for Peter to be around her, and she sensed that. "I brought her back, just as I promised."

"Thanks Simone." Claire busied herself with unloading groceries in the kitchen, while Peter stared awkwardly at Simone.

"Well … I better get going. The gallery's really suffering from my absences and I have to check out some potential purchases." Everything about Simone was stiffly correct all of a sudden, with only her brilliant eyes betraying any emotion. "Peter, what Claire said today … it's not just her. We all want to save you."

Peter nodded, but coming fresh off his dejection that afternoon, her words of comfort really didn't help all that much. He couldn't even thank her, and she seemed to sense his discomfort. Giving him a tight smile, she allowed herself to be shown out.

To say that Peter was surprised when he entered his kitchen would have been an understatement. Seeing the groceries laid out neatly on the kitchen counter with Claire presiding over them like she was their homecoming queen in less than glamorous costume was probably the last thing Peter had expected to find. "What's all this?" He asked curiously.

"This ..." She spread her small arms out widely. "Is dinner."

Peter frowned, bemused, picking up a packet of flour. "Um, flour? Are you going to bake a cake for dinner?"

"Ha." Claire skipped around the corner of the bench, grabbing the flour from him with both hands. "Close. I'm going to bake us some cupcakes."

"Cupcakes. For dinner?" Seeing the enthusiasm shining brightly in her eyes, Peter tried not to scoff but – come on. A man's got to eat some real food. Especially if he was going to die in five days.

"Don't worry, I got some pasta." Claire said in a sing-song voice. "I know how much you like your pasta."

"Well, I am Italian." Peter smirked.

"Good, then that's settled." The little cheerleader appeared very satisfied with herself, making Peter smile at her energy.

"And so when is this imaginary dinner going to take place?" Peter teased, flicking her hair in brotherly fashion.

They both glanced at the clock. "Don't worry, you'll have your food in time. Now go." Claire directed, and Peter was more than glad to obey.

Peter felt much more refreshed after he had emerged from the shower and changed into a fresh set of clothes. It had been strange sharing an apartment with a teenage girl for the last couple of days, but he felt they were getting into a rhythm.

The first thing he noticed – or heard more accurately – upon his reappearance in his own kitchen was Claire humming contently as she stirred a pink mixture in a bowl Peter hadn't even known he'd owned. He approached her softly from behind, surprising her with a friendly tickle. She shrieked, letting Peter know that she certainly was ticklish, and Peter reflected that it was lucky that he hadn't ended up with a bowl of what turned out to be pink frosted icing on his freshly washed hair. "Oh my god Peter, you scared me."

"Did I?" Peter eyed her nonchalantly, taking in her mussed appearance. There were bits of pink icing stuck to her t-shirt and a streak of what appeared to be flour on her cheek. He grabbed a tea towel off the bench and gently wiped the white powder off her face.

Claire reddened, quickly grabbing the towel off him and vigorously scrubbed the spot he'd just wiped. Did he just make her … blush? That thought hadn't even occurred to him. That she would … Oh boy. He would have to be a little more careful around her.

"Don't you want to watch some TV or anything?" She grumbled.

"No, let me help." Peter decided he might as well try to overcome the sudden tension with a little cooperation. Pushing up the sleeves of his shirt, he stirred the spaghetti simmering in the pot. "You've done more than enough."

Peter was glad to see a smile break out from Claire's features again. "You mean, besides inviting myself into your life and taking over your apartment? Sure." She shrugged. "Whatever suits. You can start chopping there." She pointed to the pile of tomatoes on the other side of the bench a little brashly.

"Yes ma'am." They finished preparing their dinner to the sounds of the television in the background, with the latest being a news report on a spate of brutal killings across Las Vegas. A woman had been apprehended but had escaped custody.

His attention from the news report was diverted by Claire's sound of triumph. "Finished." She stared intently into the oven at her cupcakes that had raised to golden brown perfection.

"You seem to be more concerned about the cupcakes than the actual dinner." Peter grumbled good naturedly.

"This _is _dinner." Claire rejoined. "If I'm away from home, I might as well enjoy it. My mom would never let me get away with this." She switched the oven off with satisfaction.

Peter's heart almost stopped when he saw her casually reach inside the still hot oven and retrieve the cupcakes with her bare hands. The air reeked distinctly of burning flesh. "What, are you crazy? Are you okay?" Peter exclaimed, grabbing both her hands roughly and holding them out.

Claire seemed stunned by his reaction, allowing him to turn her hands over to inspect for any damage. "Peter, it's okay. I'm .. all right."

"Oh my god." Seeing her hands re-heal itself and appearing just as they always had, Peter felt it was okay to breathe. "You startled the hell out of me." He gasped.

"I'm sorry. I'm just so used to … it, it didn't even occur to me what I was doing." She glanced up at him hesitantly, her eyes thoughtful. "You know, it doesn't really hurt. I don't feel it like others do."

"That's good to know." Peter was just recovering from the shock. Just when he had begun to think of Claire as a normal teenage girl, he had been abruptly reminded of how normal she wasn't.

Suddenly realising that her hands were still tightly held in his, he let them go gently, sensing the silky smoothness of them slip from his grasp. He heard Claire sigh. "Um, I better get all this cleaned up."

"No, I'll do it after we eat. Clean up only once." He grinned down at her and gestured towards the cupcakes still on the counter. "Don't you have some icing or something to put on those?"

There it was again, that bright smile. Peter consciously committed it to memory, knowing the possibility that he would not be receiving it five days from now.

Only the clank and tinkle of Peter preparing their dinner and Claire putting icing on her cupcakes disrupted the silence that followed. "I'm sorry I startled you." Claire said suddenly. Off Peter's puzzled look, she repeated. "I'm sorry I startled you, with the hands and the cupcakes. It's actually kind of refreshing to have someone know about me. You know, someone who doesn't want to take my friends and memories away."

Peter smiled ruefully, staring intently at her darkened eyes. It was strange how much Claire managed to hide in those round orbs of hers without most people being the wiser. "Need any help with those?" He motioned to the yet undecorated cupcakes.

She grinned, her blue eyes brightening again to sapphire. Handing him a spoon, she said cutely. "You only get a spoon. Apparently you only have _one_ spatula, so I'm going to be keeping it."

"Oh yeah?" Peter teased. "I'm sure I can make do with this." Dipping the spoon into the bowl and digging out a sizeable portion of icing, he deposited it straight onto her nose.

Her eyes widened, surprise written all over her features. "Oh no, you did _not _just do that!"

"Yeah I did." Peter taunted her. "What are you going to do about it?" He dared.

"Oh, payback." Her features scrunched in concentration, and she dumped the entire bowl over his head, giggling at the sight.

Laughing a little despite himself, Peter carefully removed the bowl – he recognised it now as part of a set that Heidi and Nathan had given to him as a house warming gift – and scraped off as much as he could (which incidentally had began to set). Smearing it carefully between both hands, he glanced once at the stunned figure in front of him, careful to hide his intent.

He took her face with both hands, running them generously over her mass of golden curls. Claire squirmed and squealed in his hold but Peter would not relent until he had smeared as much pink icing as he could on her.

And so began the great icing war between Peter and Claire.

Peter could not remember the last time he had been this juvenile. He was a grown man having a food fight with a teenage girl for god's sake. But it had been fun – and it had also managed to alleviate his dejection from his session with Claude that afternoon.

Unfortunately, Simone chose this precise moment to drop by again after having remained in the neighbourhood for one of her potential acquisitions. Although Peter had quickly dusted himself off, there was clearly enough icing stuck to him to make his and Claire's food fight unmistakeable.

"Hi …" Simone's voice trailed off as she gave him a weird look. Peter frowned, wiping a spot on near his nose that he thought felt slightly … sticky. "This a bad time?"

"No. Not at all." He turned quickly and found Claire, wide eyed and slightly embarrassed, silhouetted at the entrance to the kitchen. He tossed her a tea towel which she caught deftly and began wiping traces of pink icing off her face. "We were just … playing a game." Peter finished lamely.

He cursed his bad luck at having Simone – a grown woman and a sophisticated one at that – witnessing his obvious regression into adolescence. Any chance that Peter had of getting back together with her had just disintegrated into oblivion, not that Peter had been thinking about it too much in the last few days.

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "I only dropped by to give Claire this." She held out a cell. "I told her I had a spare one lying around so I could give one to her. I think she dropped hers somewhere." The frown she gave him was half like exasperation and half something else. If Peter had been in his right mind he would have said envy.

Hearing her name, Claire came out to greet Simone. "Thanks Simone. I'll take care of it, I promise."

"No need sweetie, it's yours." Smiling, Simone glanced at the clock and moved to get up. "I need to get going. Isaac and I are going to grab a late dinner tonight."

As always, the mention of Isaac and Simone spending time together grated at Peter's nerves like sandpaper rubbing against raw skin. Not a good feeling. Showing her out for the second time that day, he was able to admit that he was glad to be seeing the back of her, at least for today. Spending time with Claire that night had relaxed him, but seeing Simone again had wounded him more than he cared to admit.

He coughed, smiling at his ragged looking roommate. Claire grinned sheepishly at him, pulling strings of globby icing out of her hair. Peter held his hands up in mock surrender. "Truce? We need to eat before everything gets cold."

He took the absence of food being thrown his way as a sign of agreement from the blonde cheerleader.

* * *

"Peter?" Claire murmured, still lying on the couch with her feet sticking out over the arms. He made a questioning sound. "I'm gonna call this guy. Matt Parkman." 

"Why?" Like Claire, he was lying comfortably in front of the television after a pleasant enough meal and yet another hot shower. Taking advantage of that freshly showered feeling, he had closed his eyes and was busy doing absolutely nothing.

"Well, you said he could read minds." She shrugged, staring absently at the remote control in her hands. "Maybe he can help you. Us. With things."

Peter made a non-committal sound. He wasn't sure what calling this man would do to help their chances of saving New York and at this stage of the game, his hope was fading fast.

He heard, rather than saw, Claire pick herself up from her horizontal position on the couch. His coughs and headaches, which had plagued him for weeks since he had come back from Odessa, had miraculously reduced in both magnitude and frequency since Claire's arrival. Peter wondered whether the headaches would come back if Claire was absent around him long enough. It was something to ponder in the long term.

"I guess it's something to think about." He replied quietly. He was enjoying the sensation of feeling perfectly relaxed, something he had not felt for a while. Claire murmured something in reply which Peter couldn't decipher. He heard her get up from the couch and rummaging sounds alerted him that she was now in the kitchen.

"Do you have any potato chips?" She called out of him.

He had to hand it to her, the girl could eat. Maybe it had something to do with being a cheerleader – an athlete. "Try the top shelf."

He heard some indignant muttering, followed by the scraping of metal against the wooden floor. Peter winced at the sounds, recalling that the wooden floor in his kitchen scratched easily.

A moment later Claire reappeared, clutching a bag of potato chips. She settled herself on a chair next to the window, watching the steady pitter-patter of rain fall onto the pavement below. "You know I had to climb onto a chair to get these chips?"

He peeked out at her from drooping lids. "Next time I won't put them so far up. Or maybe if I remember, I'll put them up there deliberately."

Claire huffed. "Next time …" Her voice trailed off. The silence prompted Peter to open his eyes fully.

Claire sat ramrod straight, staring intently at something on the street below. "What? What is it Claire?" She got to her feet, panic stricken.

"Peter, it's him. It's the Haitian guy. And my dad's with him."

That got Peter to his feet. "What? Are you sure?"

"Yes." The pitch in her voice had raised by an octave. Peter quickly ran to where she was standing, seeing nothing in the wan light of the street lamps. Claire caught his arm. "I swear, Peter I saw them. I saw them."

"Okay." Peter nodded. He did not doubt Claire for a second. "We need to get out of here – now."

"Okay." Claire was just looking at him, like a deer caught in head lights. Grabbing her hand, he quickly steered her through the door, grabbing their coats along the way.

Peter's quick thinking had not happened a moment too soon. They were no further than a few steps out of the door when he saw a looming black shadow blocking their exit. "Run." He whispered.

Claire took one frightened look at the giant Haitian and bolted, pulling Peter along with her. There was nowhere else for them to go but out, so they ran outside and onto the fire escape. Peter looked over the metal railing and felt, rather than saw, Claire stop short. "My dad."

"The roof." He whispered tersely, pushing Claire upward in front of him.

They rushed onto the roof hand in hand, anywhere to escape Claire's father and the Haitian. When they heard the sounds of stomping feet on the fire escape, they ran further out towards the ledge. Looking down at the street below, a wash of vertigo assaulted Peter's senses as he realised there was nowhere else for them to go. "They're coming." He whispered, voicing his concern needlessly to her.

Far from being scared out of her wits, she now looked calm and composed. Peter would not have believed someone so young could look so poised, so still, in the face of danger. She turned abruptly towards him, her blue eyes alight with fire that seemed to spill out from her. "Do you trust me Peter?"

Peter could see the door to the fire escape open, and Claire's father and the Haitian spilling through the doorway. His heart was thumping, blood and adrenalin flowing like ambrosia through his veins. He glanced back to Claire, still finding her cloaked with that inner fire she had only just now unleashed. "Of course I trust you."

She calmly took a step towards him. She was so close now he could smell the shampoo that she had used that night after their food fight, the smell of strawberries masking something that seemed to be unique Claire-like. Their gazes locked. "Do you trust me?" She repeated.

In the stillness of the millisecond of silence that followed her question, he breathed into the cool night air. "I trust you." He answered quietly, somehow already knowing what she was about to do.

"Claire!" Her father was close enough now to plead with her. "Claire-bear, no! There's something I have to tell you!"

Ignoring him, she smiled warmly at Peter. "Dying's no big deal." With that she wrapped her arms around him, plunging them both off the ledge and onto the street below.


	6. Chapter Five

**My Cheerleader, My World**

**By Viv**

**Chapter Five **

"**When Destinies Collide"**

They hit the fire escape then ricocheted off into an alley, plunging them both into a not quite so empty dumpster. Claire had been careful to wrap herself around Peter during the fall, preventing him from sustaining most of the impact. Although she knew that his ability would have protected him from long lasting damage, there was no way of knowing how much of her healing he took on. Breaking arms and legs and other things caused Claire almost no pain. She wasn't sure whether Peter's ability merely allowed him to heal after the impact, or whether it extended to taking on her inability to feel pain.

The fall didn't hurt, but as always, it knocked the wind right out of her. Claire took a moment to orient herself to her surroundings, before popping all bones and limbs back into their rightful places. She heard Peter groan beside her.

He had fallen on top of her, which had effectively smashed her face, crushed her sternum and possibly a full set of ribs, so she knew that he probably looked a little less worse than she did. Out of the corner of the eye that wasn't busily repairing itself, she saw that he was readjusting the bones in his arms, making sure they were connected properly to his shoulder.

The sight made Claire want to laugh at the absurdity. Was that what it must have looked like to Zach after one of her many "accidents"? Seeing someone else pop their bones back into place was both grotesque and hilarious at the same time.

Peter coughed up some blood from his throat. "That is … the absolute last time … I jump off a building for you." He gasped.

A giggle burst from Claire. "I don't … enjoy … jumping off buildings either." She panted. She rolled over, noting with disgust the piece of mildewy lettuce stuck to her hair. "Come on, we have to … get out of here before …"

"Yeah." Peter hauled himself, then her, to their feet. After making sure of his footing, he athletically hurdled over the side of the dumpster, landing with a heavy crunch on the pavement. He extended a hand to Claire who used the edge of the dumpster to hurl herself to the ground.

The disorientation caused by their fall must have impacted Claire because instead of landing gracefully on her feet, she collided heavily with Peter. The impact brought both of them to ground. "Sorry." Claire gasped, painfully aware that she had probably broken another one of Peter's ribs.

They lay there on the ground for several moments, Claire able to feel the heady thump-thump of Peter's chest, before disentangling their legs and rolling up off the pavement. The fall had clearly taken a toll on both of them.

"You okay?" Peter asked her, still on the ground. The rain that night had created pools of dirt soaked water around them, a fact that he had just realised. He stared down at his sodden body. "Oh shit, I think I'm going to smell really bad soon."

She scrunched her nose playfully. "What do you mean, soon?" She offered her hand to help him up, which he took gracefully. The smile quickly fell off her face. "What are we going to do now?"

"We go to Isaac's." They ran down the alley onto the main street, the milling crowd not seeming to take any notice of their blood soaked appearance. Peter looked around for a cab to hail but before he could call one, a dark blue sedan pulled up in front of them.

The window rolled down, revealing its passengers. "You." She heard Peter gasp. Claire recognised the man as Matt Parkman, who had visited Peter in hospital in Odessa. Sitting on the passenger's side was the FBI agent that had interviewed her down at the station about Jackie's death.

"Get in." Matt gestured. Peter swallowed, hesitating, before his dark eyes fell onto Claire's. Coming to a moment of mutual decision, he nodded, motioning for Claire to get in.

As they lost themselves in the Manhattan traffic, Claire saw the Haitian in the distance. Staring at the retreating figure, she thought she saw the giant man nod subtly at her before turning away.

* * *

Peter was still panting heavily from the chase but that didn't stop him from blurting. "How did you –" 

"How did we find you?" Mark interrupted swiftly. "We didn't. They did." He jerked his head from the direction they came from.

His partner, whom was re-introduced to them as Audrey, elaborated. "We've been tailing Bennet – I guess that's your father." She looked directly at Claire. "He's been chasing Sylar just like us, except we believe he actually caught him for a time. He escaped though, after killing one of his people."

"Sylar? You mean the guy – "

"That tried to kill Claire. Yes." Matt finished Peter's sentence off.

"Oh my god man, stop reading my mind."

"Then you stop reading mine." The older man bit back, not unkindly.

"Are you two having some sort of Vulcan mind meld or something?" Audrey asked sarcastically.

Claire at first didn't understand what was happening, but then recalled that Matt's ability was reading people's minds – telepathy she remembered the book had called it – and Peter must have been feeding off that. It meant that Matt could read Peter's mind who was reading Matt's mind at the same time, who was able to read Peter's mind doing exactly the same thing. Her mind reeled at the possibilities.

Matt stared intently at her. _"Wait, did you just hear that?" _She asked him silently.

He smiled a secretive little smile. "Some of it. Don't worry, I've become a Fort Knox of secrets. Some thoughts should stay … thoughts." Silent understanding seemed to pass between Matt and Audrey with those words.

"Where are we headed?" Audrey asked them brusquely. Spying their blood splattered clothes, she added. "And what the hell just happened to you two?"

"Isaac Mendez's place." Peter leaned forward from the back seat. "I can give you the directions. And, we ah – just jumped off the building."

The eyebrows of both Matt and Audrey shot skywards. Thankfully for Claire, they did not choose to continue that particular line of questioning.

* * *

To say that Isaac and Simone were surprised at their unexpected visitors would have been an understatement. Ever since he had gotten clean a few weeks ago, Isaac had been careful to keep a well established routine, which made it easier for him to resist temptation. 

After the introductions were made and Claire and Peter's situation explained, they sat around Isaac's table discussing their options. "Whatever happens, you can't stay here." Isaac began.

"Why not?" Claire bit back in surprise. She whipped her gaze to Peter, comforted by the look of shock that also coloured his features.

Seeing Isaac's slightly exasperated look, Simone explained more patiently. "We've actually discussed this … with the others. But not with you." She looked at Peter pointedly, who straightened up. "We're not sure what prolonged exposure to Isaac – and to the others – would do to you."

Peter blinked furiously and was about to reply when Matt exclaimed. "Wait, you're going to blow up? Did I read that right? You're going to _blow up_?!"

"Do you think you could've said that a little louder Parkman?" Audrey had a look of incredulous concern on her face, but at the same time she glanced at Peter like he was a ticking time bomb. "What is he talking about? What's going on?"

They explained everything to her, while Matt looked on with rising panic on his face. Taking a bottle of aspirin out of his pocket, he quickly swallowed two in quick succession. Claire silently offered him her glass of water to wash it down. "Thanks."

Matt seemed to have calmed down a little by the end of their narrative. "Okay, so that's going to happen in … five days. Right now you seem to have a bigger problem. Bennet's not going to be letting Claire go that easily. He knows she's in New York now."

"But his attention's got to be split at the moment. He can't chase both Claire and Sylar." Audrey pointed out.

"He won't have to." It was the first time Claire had said anything since they had shown up at Isaac's. She figured she was only a high school girl (although technically not in school) and should let the grown ups do the talking. "He won't have to, if Sylar's going after me."

"But didn't his memory of you get erased?" Matt asked. Claire looked at the officer, bewildered, before reminding herself that this guy could read minds.

"I don't know. Maybe he found me again."

"Or maybe he's coming after any one of us." Peter surmised. "Think about it. From what Claire's told me, this guy Sylar, he collects things. Abilities. If one of us has something … an ability he wants, he could be tracking … us."

Isaac stood suddenly, his face blanching, a trace of terror in his voice. "Wait. This guy, he cuts off heads and steals people's brains?" Claire nodded mutely. "Hiro once told me when he travelled to the future, he found me dead. On the day of the explosion. My head sliced open."

"Baby, no." Simone whispered quietly. "That's not going to happen."

Peter frowned, lines marring his otherwise smooth face. "Then Sylar could be tracking you."

"We can't know that for sure." Audrey said crisply, though not unsympathetically. "We have no way of knowing who Sylar's really after."

"Wait, are you saying he's here, in New York?" Peter turned to Audrey incredulously.

Audrey nodded silently to Matt, who answered for both of them. "We've been tracking Bennet and he's been tracking Sylar. We kind of lost them though when we found you." The implication was not lost even on Claire – if Matt and Audrey hadn't come to their rescue back at Peter's apartment, they still might have their lead on Sylar.

"Wait, isn't from Sylar from New York?" Claire asked curiously.

"What?" Audrey exclaimed, colouring a little from a burst of excitement. "How can you even know that?"

Claire coloured a little from the FBI agent's intense scrutiny. "I was talking with Mohinder about it … he's been going through his father's old notes and things. Apparently his father … Sylar believed his father made him who he is. He's been going through everything, trying to get as much information about this guy as possible, but there's nothing. He thinks Sylar may have murdered his father and erased all records of his real identity from his notes."

"That's right, this guy … There's one thing Mohinder's sure about." Isaac said quietly. "He's sure he's from New York …"

"We have to see this guy, Mohinder? Where can we find him?" Audrey practically knocked her chair back in her eagerness to get up.

Isaac was able to tell Audrey where Mohinder lived. While Audrey was busy making a call to Mohinder to make sure he was going to be available to talk, Matt gently motioned Peter to one side. Claire, curious, tagged behind them, and she saw Isaac and Simone do the same.

Peter and Matt stared at each other in silence. Claire looked from one to the other, rolling her eyes. They were obviously reading each other's minds. What was it that Audrey had said? They were Vulcan mind melding? Sounded like something straight out of geeksville. "Just giving you a head's up on this guy."

"I think the other's need to here this too."

"What?" Isaac asked the question for all of them.

Matt cleared his throat, his voice pinched. "We met this guy, Theodore Sprague a few weeks ago. He had the ability to …" He shook his head, obviously bewildered by what he was about to say. "I think he can blow things up."

"You mean, blow things up, or blow himself up?" Claire asked shrewdly.

Matt shrugged again, frowning. "I'm not sure. All we know is that he was able to incinerate a guy just by touching him, douse him with enough radiation to make even his bones a nuclear hazard. And I think he killed his wife by giving her cancer, exposing her to massive amounts of radiation."

Simone stepped closer, alarmed. "Wait, is this another psycho we have to worry about?"

"No, no, Ted's just … I don't think he can control what he's doing. He was taken, I think by your father," He shot Claire a glance, "and something was done to him. He can't control it. It's hurting him." Audrey had now finished her call and was signalling for them to go. Matt glanced around at all of them, a serious expression marking his kindly features. "Look, I'm telling you this because … I don't know, it might have something to do with Peter … you know. It's possible, just something to look out for."

Peter nodded, seemingly lost in thought. Claire thought he looked so vulnerable and at that moment, she wanted to run to him and give him a big bear hug. Instead, she contented herself by giving his arm a comforting squeeze.

When he absently slipped his arm from her grasp and clutched her hand in his, she was little shocked. She wasn't sure whether he even knew what he had just done. But it wasn't an unpleasant sensation by any stretch of the imagination, so she remained silent.

"Thanks man." Peter extended his hand, which Matt took with a smile.

"Good luck." Matt and Audrey bade farewell to the others, Matt shooting Claire a silent thought obviously only meant for her. _"He needs you more than you know. And you have it in you to help him." _

Claire didn't have to ask who Matt was talking about. She shot a fleeting look at Peter, but if he had heard Matt, he was giving no outward signs of it.


	7. Chapter Six: Part I

**Chapter Six **

**"On the Run" (Part I)**

After they had left Isaac's, Peter led Claire to an impressively run down motel, complete with semi-drunk residents lurching outside and roaches scurrying just out of sight. Although the odours of unwashed bodies and alcohol was faint, it was detectable enough to make Claire scrunch her nose in disgust.

Peter felt guilty exposing Claire to a place like this. But it was the only place he could think of that they could remain anonymous for the night. He had to wait for Claude to contact him the next day. His reticent mentor had deliberately not left any contact details and so Peter was forced to wait until their next scheduled meeting for help. He explained this to Claire in the cab.

"I'm going to meet the invisible man?" She had asked almost inaudibly, giving the cab driver a surreptitious look to see whether he had been eavesdropping. The delighted way she had said that brought a smile to his face. Even in their dire situation, she could still managed to be enthralled by something so mundane. Well, sort of mundane.

Peter had briefly contemplated turning to Nathan for help, but after what had happened to Heidi with Linderman six months ago, he knew that Nathan would think twice about endangering his family again, even if his brother were inclined to help. Peter didn't want to involve his brother if he could help it. It was his mess and he would clean it up himself.

Peter warily approached the man at the reception desk (he could only refer to that in the very loosest definition of the term). The man had clearly not bothered to shave nor shower for at least the past few days, the reek assailing Peter as soon as they came in closer proximity. Claire obviously felt the same way, scrunching her nose even tighter and sidling carefully off to one side.

"One room for tonight please." Peter said quietly, not liking the leer the man was giving Claire. Peter shifted subtly to block the man's view and cleared his throat meaningfully.

"Sure. Seventy bucks if you're paying in cash." After Peter quickly paid, the man handed him the room keys. "Enjoy your night." He surveyed Claire, sniggering suggestively. Peter frowned deeply, even more not liking what the man was obviously suggesting. Not bothering to thank him, he quickly led Claire up to their room.

The ominous sight of the dark hallway, with paint flaking off its walls and dirt and other brown stains clinging to the side obviously intimidated her. Instinctively, he took one of Claire's small hands in his own and led her quickly up the stairs.

After struggling with the slightly rusty lock, he was able to get the door to open. Once they were in the room, Peter found that he was able to relax again. They would hopefully have some respite from everything, for one night at least.

The tight squeeze he felt Claire giving him reminded Peter that she had not said a word since their brief conversation in the cab. He realised with a start that he was still holding her hand. Bringing their entwined hands up to eye level, he stood transfixed by the sight as his mind raced with new implications.

He couldn't even voice them, they were so absurd. And illegal. It was as if a book in his mind had been closed, and now it was open, the pages turning rapidly in quick succession bringing to mind new images, words, possibilities.

And that was the first of many times he would repeat the mantra, 'she's only a girl. A child. She's only 17.'

"Peter?" Her voice seemed fragile, tired, scared. She was gazing up at him with her wide, trusting eyes, unsure of what was making him stare so bug eyed at their hands.

He quickly let her hand go, clearing his throat loudly. "We should get some rest." In the awkward silence that followed, they found themselves eyeing the double bed in the centre of the room, Peter still preoccupied with erasing all forbidden thoughts from his mind.

He was going to suggest that Claire take the bed, but Claire, seeing the stained carpet, quickly intercepted that idea. "We'll share, you can't sleep on that. The rats will eat you alive."

"Are you sure?" He asked a little dubiously. It would be a huge thing to ask of her.

"I'm sure." She gave him that bright smile again, the one that lighted up her eyes. Peter found himself admiring anew the inner fire that had allowed her to deal with so much against the odds.

Peter's cell broke the silence, the caller id informing him that it was Nathan. He quickly stepped outside the room to answer it but before he could do so, Claire ran up and hastily stopped him. "Don't answer it."

"What, why not? It's Nathan. My brother." He amended.

Claire seemed not to hear him, staring intently at the cell in his hands. "It's your cell." Off his incomprehension, she expanded. "My dad can trace the call. That Haitian guy, I remember now, he told me that anyone could be traced with a single phone call if they knew the number. Your apartment … my dad knows where you live, who you are. You need to switch this thing off." She roughly snatched his cell from his hands and switched it off.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Peter tried reigning his anger in, but he couldn't help it. The trauma of the night – the past few weeks in fact – had left him highly strung and his moods erratic. He had been having a hard time controlling them before Claire had appeared on his doorstep. But now the irrational anger, agitation and frustration of the last few weeks burst like a dam to the surface. "That's my brother, I need to let him know I'm okay." Peter exclaimed angrily.

It was odd that at this moment that Claire was the calm, rational one. "Here." She offered, Peter recognising the cell that Simone had given to the girl earlier that night. "Use this to call Nathan. My dad may not have had time to connect you two together."

"If what you say is true, I should use the pay phone outside." Peter said obstinately.

"Pay phones can be traced too." Claire explained patiently. How could a 17 year old cheerleader possibly know all this? "If Nathan's phone is being tapped – which it could be – it'll give away our position."

"Then why would I need to use this?" He gestured to Simone's phone.

"_Because _… even if Nathan's phone was being tapped, by the time you finish your conversation you can switch the phone off, they wouldn't be able to trace it." Peter felt an odd sense of satisfaction at seeing the rising irritation on Claire's face. "I don't know. I have no idea, it's just what the Haitian guy said. It just seems more … safer."

"Really? And how do you know all this?" He bit back a little harshly, instantly regretting it.

His tone obviously was the absolute last straw in a long litany of straws, because it seemed to break whatever dam she had erected to contain her emotions. Anger flooded freely onto her friendly features, that inner fire Peter had glimpsed earlier flaring to the surface and now unfortunately directed entirely at him. "Fine!" She half-shouted, half-gritted out. "What would I know, I'm just a stupid cheerleader right? Do whatever you want. I don't care." She furiously shoved Simone's cell into his hands, before stomping off and slamming the door loudly.

Peter stared at the now closed door, regretting his actions even more. She was only 17 years old, and she was caught up in something that neither of them had any control over. He was meant to be her protector – hero, he grimaced at the term – and here he was being juvenile while she was only trying to help them. He sighed. He would call Nathan and explain the situation, and then he would apologise to Claire.

His brother was predictably annoyed at being hung up on. "Did you just hang up on me?"

Peter closed his eyes in exhaustion. His entire body was burning with fatigue. He had trouble dealing with his older brother in the best of moods, but having to deal with him now was – and he couldn't emphasise this enough – excruciatingly painful. He almost preferred dealing with his old headaches rather than Nathan. "It was an accident." Switching the phone to his other ear, he went on. "Listen Nathan, I'm not going to be contactable in the next few days." Which maybe for the rest of his life, Peter added silently.

"And why the hell not?"

"Well … let's just say I'm mixed up in something right now. It's best for you if you don't get mixed up in it."

There was a long, pregnant pause. Try as he might to be a hard ass, Peter knew that deep down his older brother was still there beneath the grouchy exterior. That older brother he had grown up with – the older brother who had always in the end gone out of his way to protect his more idealistic, dreamy sibling from the dangers that the big bad world posed. Their relationship had been fractured by their father's death six months ago. Gone was the idol that Peter had worshipped, replaced by a facsimile of Nathan as their father had always wanted – ruthless, ambitious and hungry for success. "What the hell does that even mean?"

Peter sighed, pressing a tired hand to his temples. He really did not want to get into this at the moment. "It means, me and Claire, we're in trouble, the kind of trouble that you shouldn't be involved with. For Heidi and the boys' sakes. For your campaign." Peter added.

"The cheerleader?" And then Nathan surprised him. "You're my brother Peter. You're family too."

Peter was slightly embarrassed to find himself furiously blinking away tears. He had always been known as a sensitive dreamer, but that didn't mean he went around crying all the time. The pressure cooker that he had found himself in the last few days was definitely taking its toll. "I know. Look, I'm ... I've got a few other things I can try. But if they don't work –"

"Then you come to me, do you hear? That's what I do, I clean up your messes." Nathan's tone had gone back to being terse, annoyed. "Look, I'm going to be camped out at campaign headquarters until the election. You can find me there."

Of course. With all the confusion of Sylar, Claire's father and his impending explosion, Peter had completely forgotten that November 8 was also election day for Nathan. The symbolism of all these events converging on that single day was not lost on Peter.

His conversation with Nathan had taken a lot longer than expected. When he returned to their room, he found it silent, Claire lying motionless on one side of the bed. He gazed down at her reclining figure in the dim light, noting the blotchiness of her skin, an unmistakeable sign of crying. He felt ashamed at having been the cause of it, but seeing her lying there so serene and her breathing steady, he decided to let her sleep.

Besides, he needed the sleep too. Yawning silently so as not to wake her, he stretched out carefully on the other side of the bed. Staring unseeingly at the mouldy ceiling, he drifted off to sleep.

_Author's Notes: Just a quick thank you to all those who have thoughtfully left your reviews and feedback about this story. It's really appreciated! ;-)_


	8. Chapter Six: Part II

**Chapter Six **

"**On the Run" (Part II)**

The first sensation Peter was greeted with when he woke up the next morning was warm, steady breathing tantalising the crook of his neck. He opened his eyes groggily, his mind still trying to catch up to his body to decipher the sensation. When it did, it jerked him to full awareness, his head quickly darting up in surprise.

The source of the warm breathing turned out to be Claire, who sometime during the night had subconsciously forgiven him enough to now be sleeping soundly on his shoulder. Peter's concession to gentlemanly action just before he had drifted off to sleep was to place his pillow between their bodies, just in case. This had partly worked, as the pillow was now wedged tightly between them so that their only contact was Claire resting on his shoulder.

Peter inhaled with relief. Now was not really the time to be dealing with anything of that nature.

Her eyes fluttered open, disconcerting Peter with the trusting gaze she directed up at him. He was about to apologise for his words the night before but before he could say anything, she hastily cut him off. "I'm sorry."

"No." He protested, shifting to the side, uncomfortably aware of their proximity. "Don't be, it was me being a jerk."

"You could never be a jerk." She giggled into the pillow, hugging it like she would a teddy bear. Off his self-conscious laugh, she amended. "Well, maybe a little silly. But not a jerk."

"That's good to know." Peter conceded good naturedly. A quick glance at his watch told him that they would only just have time to grab something to eat on their way to their meeting with Claude that morning. Peter quickly switched his cell back on, finding the location of their meeting in his messages. If Claire noticed, she didn't say anything to him.

He was bemused by Claire's continued excitement in meeting who she kept referring to as 'the invisible man'. "He has a name you know." Peter chided mockingly.

"I know." She was using her sing-song voice, which thankfully evoked in Peter more of a brotherly affection than anything else. "It's just that it sounds so much more interesting than 'Claude'. Is he French by the way?"

Claire seemed to be in such a good mood that she was almost bouncing off the walls. Although Peter had known her for a total of a few short days, he sensed that at least part of it was due to her wanting to smooth over their little argument last night. Which Peter wasn't against, so he played along. "I don't think so. He's got an English accent."

"That's good." Peter gestured for her to use the bathroom first. He could here Claire humming from inside, saying something inaudible to him.

"What?"

She poked her head out. "I said, that's good, otherwise I totally wouldn't have been able to talk to him. I almost failed French last year, I don't even know why I took it in the first place."

"You speak French?" He wasn't sure why that surprised him, although he reflected that despite their immediate bond, he had yet to learn anything normal about her. Things like her favourite movies and what kind of music she liked, or foods she enjoyed. Some things he had been able to pick up, like her secret fetish for teddy bears, drawing them all over the little notebook that served as her journal, baking cupcakes and muffins and love of MTV. She was also oddly intrigued with Peter's comic book collection. He had to admit that her healthy, sun-kissed personality did not readily call to mind someone who liked comic books. He had been wrong about Claire on that count.

"I _learned _French." She corrected him, shouting from the bathroom. "There's a difference. I think it's because I want to go to Paris some day." She re-emerged and said breezily. "Your turn."

"Paris, huh?" Peter cocked a suggestive eyebrow at her. "Maybe we'll get there one day."

"We?" That stopped Claire in her tracks. Peter swallowed, sensing impending awkwardness, but Claire recovered and breezed by. "Wouldn't that make me the luckiest girl in the world?"

They made their way to the address Claude had given to them, Peter filling Claire in on what he and Claude had been doing, including how Claude had been helping Peter hone and control his ability, both mentally and physically. "So, he's kind of like my mentor. Sort of."

"A mentor that won't give out his digits." Claire scoffed. "So, he's kind of like Yoda, but invisible and uncontactable in an emergency."

"And not green." Peter added, munching on his blueberry bagel. "And also not very short. Actually, he's quite tall." As if that made all the difference.

"What's with all the secrecy though?" Claire had elected to get a breakfast taco. Just the idea of it was enough to churn Peter's stomach, so he was careful to stay upwind of it.

"He's just a loner. I can understand that."

"How?" Claire inquired curiously.

"Well, think about it. His power makes him lonely. He's invisible, it's like, when he uses it, no one can see or hear him. They don't know he's there. It's weird." Peter concluded.

Claire laughed calmly. Peter had obviously misunderstood her question. "No, I meant – how can you understand it? Being a loner."

Her question was slightly more confrontational than she perhaps realised. Peter took a moment to gather his thoughts before replying. "I don't know, I'm … kind of a loner myself. I like doing my own thing, I always have. Don't get me wrong, I have friends." He laughed a brittle little laugh. "But it's hard finding people who understand me, what I do. I'm kind of used to being the black … cat of the family."

Claire burst out laughing, snorting. "I think that's the black _sheep _of the family, and yeah, I totally get that." She finished off a little forlornly.

"You do?" He knew that it was not helpful making assumptions about people, but this was really the last thing he had expected Claire to admit.

"Don't look so surprised." She punched in the arm, not caring whether it hurt or not. Which it actually did. "I've had a total of one true friend in my life, and he has no memory of me or our friendship. I've known since I was little that I was adopted. I had no idea who my real parents were. My father turned out to be … well, you know. And … do you think keeping a secret like mine hasn't made me a loner? I spent the last two weeks of high school in popularity exile."

That stopped Peter short. During all their time together, he had been aware that she was young. Unformed, untried, sheltered by childhood. He had allowed himself to be blinded by her courage and awesome ability to heal to the exclusion of that other truth – the truth that she was still so youthful and in need of protection. "I guess … I hadn't really thought you'd feel that way." He said cautiously.

She made a non-committal noise. "I wasn't always a cheerleader you know." She said quietly. "I only got into the squad six months ago because another girl quit, and Jackie got me in. Before that I was kind of a nobody. When I got in, I was so happy. But then, _this _happened." She gestured to herself. "I found myself in a lot of weird situations."

"Like what?"

"Um, like ending up on an autopsy table with my chest completely cut open." Although she laughed, she could failed to hide the look of utter horror that dimmed her normally bright blue eyes. "I had to squeeze everything back in before someone came and found me. And I mean, _everything_. It was gross." She shuddered.

That made Peter stop short in mid-stride. He wasn't sure he had heard right. "Say again?" She repeated the story in its fuller, more gorier detail. "How ...?"

"I think it's because something was stuck in my brain. The last thing I remember before was hitting my head on something and blacking out."

"But didn't your friends … I mean, didn't they think you'd died or something?" Peter asked, puzzled.

"Well, there was only one person there when it happened. A guy. Brody, the quarterback." She rolled her eyes, disgust creeping onto her face. "He … let's just say at that point he was probably relieved I was dead."

"What?" This story was leaving Peter in a tail spin. He had no idea Claire had lived through anything this traumatic.

"Something happened …" Here Claire paused, took a moment to steel herself. Peter could see that she was about to tell him something pretty personal, something she had obviously been at pains to avoid perhaps even from herself. "We were making out, doing stuff. He tried to … you know. Force … things." Her face was crimson with mortification.

"Did he …?" Peter uttered quietly through clenched teeth.

"No. _No_." Claire repeated, looking awkward as hell.

To say that Peter was angry would have been the understatement of the millennium. Although his brain understood that this actually happened a few weeks ago and therefore was past the point of him being able to do anything about it, his instinct to pummel this Brody guy was so strong he had to keep his tightly clenched hands in his pockets to avoid them swinging out at random passers-by in misdirected rage. To think that he had come close to … hurting Claire in that way.

Hospice nurse or not, kindly caregiver to the sick and the elderly or not, he would have been hard pressed to restrain himself if he ever came face to face with this guy.

Claire's voice pulled him back from his blind rage. "He called me a freak. And the worst thing was, I totally agreed with him."

"I'd hardly call you a freak." Peter objected quickly, looking earnestly into sparkling blue eyes. "Short maybe, but not a freak." He received his second punch of that morning for that comment, which again, hurt quite a bit. "Hey, do you remember what I said to you, when we first met?"

She nodded. "It gets better after high school. Or something like that."

"Yeah."

There was a pause, before a giggle escaped her. "Does this count as after high school? Cause all this running around kind of sucks." She was quick to duck away from Peter's reach to tickle her, taunting him with a tinkling little laugh.

Claire looked down at her half-eaten taco, scrunching up her nose in disgust. "Talking about autopsies' made me lose my appetite." Skipping a few steps towards the trash bin, she primly dumped the remainder of her breakfast in. Wordlessly, Peter tore the remains of his bagel in half, handing one of them to Claire.

The smile she rewarded him with seemed to make up for all the churning feelings of the night before. If his mood kept soaring this way, he'd be able to fly, even without Nathan's help.


	9. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

"**The Invisible Man" **

The invisible man – Claude, she amended herself – was obviously not a big fan of interior decorating. Although Peter had told her that he didn't actually live there, the sterility of the converted warehouse in the midst of Soho chilled her. It reminded Claire of a morgue. The man also obviously didn't believe in being easy to pin down either. After the third buzz, they were let into the refurbished complex. The door mysteriously swung open to admit them inside.

"Creepy." She whispered, feeling almost as if she was in church or a graveyard, prompting a chuckle from Peter. Seeing him smile, Claire could not help but be reminded of the big day. It was only three days until November 8. Claire's hands grew clammy just thinking about how close they all were to ultimate calamity. This guy had better be able to help Peter, or else … well, something.

The place was unfurnished and dimly lit. Although it was a moderately sunny fall day outside, the blinds were drawn so that only tiny slits of light filtered through. Claire couldn't understand why a guy who could be invisible needed to evade the glare of intrusive gazes from outside. It didn't make sense to hide from a world that couldn't see you.

"Claude?" She heard Peter call. His voice hung and echoed for a moment, before an answering voice replied, deeper and a little menacing.

"You've brought a visitor." The way he said 'visitor' made Claire feel a little more unwelcomed than welcomed. If she had been alone she would have been tempted to bolt, but she trusted Peter's instincts.

"This is Claire, the cheerleader I told you about." Although she knew that Peter meant well, she was getting more than a little irritated at always being introduced as the cheerleader. Wasn't she capable of doing anything else?

"Um, hi." She muttered shyly, addressing the emptiness in front of her. She couldn't see the guy – he was invisible after all – and it felt a little awkward talking to empty air.

Peter cleared his throat awkwardly. His hand on the small of her back gently guided her to face the left. "He's over there." He whispered.

"Oh." Awkwardness. Claire knew it wouldn't help, but she found herself squinting in what she presumed to be Claude's general direction, trying to make out something, anything, of the man supposedly standing in front of her. Predictably, Claire couldn't make anything out. She turned to Peter to say as much but gasped in shock. He had become slightly transparent, the husk of his frame still visible but appearing to be made of something like cellophane. "Peter, you're transparent."

He looked down sheepishly. "Oh. I'm trying to stop that." He mumbled.

"Try harder?" Claire didn't care whether her voice squeaked or not, it was freaky seeing Peter half there and half … not. Even though logically she knew that he would still physically be with her even if she couldn't see him, it was still – and she couldn't stress this enough – freaky.

Peter closed his eyes. His face dipped slightly in concentration, making his sleek hair fall over the side of his face. She was relieved when after a moment he was able to return somewhat to normal. "Good, good." She heard an unfamiliar calm, soft voice in front of her. "That was good re-substantiation."

"Re-wh-huh?" The shell of a man – Peter had been accurate in his description in that he was quite tall and imposing – materialised out of thin air in front of her. Claire let out a half-gasp in astonishment even though she had known he had been there the entire time. "Re-substantiation. Re-materialisation. In plain English, your friend was able to block my power and assert a mental barrier around himself. He willed himself to not mimic me."

Claire wanted to retort that it didn't sound at all like plain English but a whole lot of mumbo jumbo, but she kept her mouth shut. The man, with his foreboding beard and lined face, was also about a foot taller than her and looked capable of snapping her in half with his bare hands. Plus, he looked kind of menacing and grumpy, not at all what she thought an invisible mentor would look like. But then he suddenly smiled and extended his hand courteously and his whole demeanour brightened. "It's nice to finally meet you, Claire."

"You too." His smile and crisp English accent made him seem less like menacing and more friendly.

"You've been a very important person in Peter's life." Claude continued warmly.

Claire stammered. "Oh … really?" His cool exterior was really beginning to melt. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Peter colouring a little. "He's … had a big impact on me too. Saving my life will kind of do that." She joked.

"Uh, I've been telling Claude about what everything. You know, 'save the cheerleader, save the world? You're kind of central, being the cheerleader." Peter seemed to feel the need to clarify, which was gratifying but also a deflating. Claire didn't want to admit that she had kind of enjoyed the sensation of being described as important in Peter's life.

Claude invited her to sit on a chair in the corner of the room, making it possible to observe his discussions with Peter. Claire was glad, as she had been curious about what precisely he was doing to help Peter control his power. What had Mohinder called it? Biological mimicry.

It turned out Claude was probably as learned about their unique abilities as Mohinder was, if not more, seeing as he was able to study it first hand. She was surprised to learn that Peter's power to take on the abilities of those around him came from his deep empathy with everyone he met. That meant the key to controlling that ability was most likely to be found in controlling or focusing his empathy away from those he didn't wish to absorb powers from and channelling it into control of his feelings.

So, that was it? The big thing they were going to do to stop Peter from exploding was to make him less empathetic towards others? Claire liked Mohinder's idea better about developing a vaccine to temporarily block Peter's abilities.

"You need to focus!" Claude said sharply, not for the first time that morning. Even sitting at a comfortable distance from them, Claire could feel Peter's frustration rolling off him like heat waves.

"I am! Do you think I'm doing this _on purpose_?"

"You need to clear your mind of emotional turmoil. This isn't meditation, this isn't tai-chi or yoga or any other mystical nonsense. This is all about _you_. You have to look inside yourself, understand who you are and what you're capable of. _Feel _when you are absorbing the powers of those around you. Feel my power. Close your eyes."

"They're already closed." Peter gritted out, his tone a lot sharper than usual. He seemed to be subconsciously mirroring Claude's terseness.

"Feel it." The other man continued as if the interruption had not occurred. "Can you feel it?"

There was a short pause, before Peter replied. "Yeah. I can … I actually can."

"Good. Visualise it now, like waves crashing onto a beach during a storm. You're the beach, my power is crashing into you."

"So how can I stop it?"

"You can stop it because you _can_. You have the power, not me. Visualise – the storm is no longer an issue, because you control the storm. Without the storm, the waves stop crashing. They lap, and you can control the tide, the strength. The waves will be calm and still, not encroaching on the beach at all, given the right conditions." Claire watched them, fascinated. Claude clearly had a good teaching style and had total credibility in terms of mentoring Peter, being the Yoda to his ... whatever the guy from Star Wars was.

"What is most important – what you will learn, is that even waves leave marks. You should be able to access that mark, recreate it in your mind."

Peter's eyes snapped open. "What, you mean I'll be able to recall those powers that I get from others?"

"Eventually." Claude snapped. "Your attention's gone. Get it back."

That continued for a good while. Claire was pretty impressed with herself for not yawning even once throughout the session.

Peter was now telling Claude about the dramatic events of the night before, including the reappearance of his nightmares. Claire, whose attention had began wandering, jerked to full awareness at that news. Why hadn't Peter told her?

Because he hadn't wanted her to worry, her inner voice said. Which was a pretty stupid thing to do, in her opinion.

They spent the next hour working on Peter's control of his ability, with Claude talking him through certain parts. Mostly, to an onlooker everything looked fairly dull, but she reminded herself that this was supposed to be crucial in aiding Peter attain some semblance of control to avert the coming disaster.

Three days. That was all that stood between them and death. It was funny how much Claire thought of the others – including Peter and herself – as a single group, a not quite legion of freaks who hoped to 'save the world'. Claire was convinced she was somehow central in all the drama that had erupted around her. She had never been self-centred, but if the mission statement of 'save the cheerleader, save the world' had told her anything, it was that she somehow had something to do with saving the world. Hiro had patiently explained to her that it wasn't an "if, then" statement, but Claire hadn't quite gotten her mind around it.

She knew one thing. Peter had believed it enough to launch himself off a building in order to save her. And because he believed it, so did she.

At last Peter and Claude stood up, with the session appearing to have finished. Peter reminded Claude that the deadline – pun completely unintended – was looming rather close. "This is a question I'm sure that's already been asked." The older man said sarcastically, though not unkindly. "But have you considered the possibility that your dream should not be interpreted literally?"

"What do you mean?" Peter asked, turning around to face his mentor.

Claude began pacing about the room. "There are certain elements of your dream –"

"Vision." Peter corrected.

"Of your vision that do not follow from a logical standpoint."

"I don't … follow." Claire asked curiously. It sounded like Claude was building up to something important.

"Peter believes that what he had was a vision of the future. But in the future, why would Claire be wearing her cheerleading outfit? What would the others – Isaac, Hiro, Simone, Mohinder – why would they all be there if they knew what was going to happen? There are elements there that seem – abstract."

"So Claire won't be wearing her outfit. So what? What's going to happen to me is still going to happen, that doesn't change anything."

"Yes it does. If everything isn't literal, it means everything is abstract. Something to be interpreted. Claire is in her cheerleading outfit as a symbol, a mere representation of something that is important to you or your life."

"It doesn't matter, I explode." Peter's eyes were painfully anguished. "… every single time, I explode."

"But do you?" Claude asked cryptically. "You have relied on important pieces of information and joined them up together as if they were pieces of the same whole. Your friend Hiro tells you that November 8 there will be a big nuclear explosion. Your friend Isaac has painted the future with that explosion. You've had a vision that you explode." Here the older man held his two hands, joining them together for emphasis. "But you need to ask yourself – do they really fit together in that order? Is that the only interpretation you can come up with?"

"Do you have another?" Claude's alternative perked Claire's attention up. This was a new idea she could wrap her head around.

"Merely that there's always more than meets the eye, and nothing is as it seems." He came towards Peter, his eyes burning intensely in the gloom. "Ask yourself this. The dream, what happened in Odessa – brought all of you together. Something is going to happen in three days. But it may not be what you think. Perhaps your dream's only function was to bring all your friends together. All of you meeting – people with special abilities – can't be merely a coincidence."

"That … doesn't make any sense at all, Claude." Peter said, energy seeming to drain out of him.

Claude gave them a calm, squeezing Peter's shoulder grimly. "You'll be able to get through it. Stop whatever it is. Go to Mohinder and let him help you as much as he can. Between us, I think it will be just enough to prevent it from happening." The taller man approached, addressing to Claire directly. "You can also help your friend." Claire studiously avoided Peter's suddenly intense gaze. "Your power is to heal, and Peter needs to feed off that as much as possible." It made her sound like a Big Mac and Peter like some giant fat sucking vampire, but Claire didn't really mind, if it helped Peter in any way. She nodded, giving a serious smile to the man towering over her.

Claude agreed to let Peter and Claire stay at the empty apartment for the night. Passing them the keys, he quickly bade them good-bye and left them in the eerie silence. "So your nightmares are back." Claire asked, accusation lacing her tone. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to worry." Claire found it telling that Peter was the one now carefully avoiding her penetrating gaze, sticking his hands in his pockets. "It's good Claude let us stay here." He said after a while.

She stared, unblinking at his dark eyes, which were looking at everything but her. "You didn't think it'd help talking to me about it, did you?" She said indignantly, hating the immaturity in her voice. She sounded so young, no wonder he couldn't take her seriously.

"What? What are you talking about?" He puffed, expelling pent up emotion. His brown eyes, usually calm and open, now spit sparks of passionate fury. Although he had been wearing the same clothes that Simone had lent him a couple of nights ago, he appeared suddenly to be an entirely different person. An entirely different, completely angry sort of person.

"You didn't tell me because you thought I wouldn't be able to understand." Claire repeated obstinately, her voice raising an octave. "You think I'm just a cheerleader you have to run around and save all the time. I'm important because I'm the cheerleader and you have to save the world. I'm like this huge waste of space that you have to lug around 'cause I can't take care of myself!"

"That's crap and you know it!" Claire was so angry she didn't even flinch at his ferocity.

"Do I?" The pitch of her voice was so high now she was for all intents and purposes screaming at him. "Do I?! You run around and treat me like I'm made of glass. You're so careful to keep all the details of your big – of what's going to happen to you – from me, I had to find out most of it from the others, who I met for like five minutes!" Like all the other times she was angry, she found herself waving her arms wildly. "You didn't even tell me about your dream back in Odessa. When you came out of your coma, I told you _everything. _How could you keep something like that a secret? How come you possibly keep something like that a secret from _me_?!"

"What, I'm supposed to tell you everything now? You're just a girl." Perhaps he hadn't meant it the way it came out, but that was the single most hurtful thing he could have said to her at that moment. She backed away, her body heaving with crackling emotion, with the heaving soon giving away to heart wrenching sobs.

Peter realised he had gone a step too far. He rubbed a weary hand over his eyes, distress starting to line his features. He brushed hair out of his face and watched, despondent, at the wound he had inflicted on her.

Claire sank forlornly against the wall, burying her face in her hands, not caring that he could see every break and crack of emotion that seeped out of her. He didn't seem to understand – or maybe he did and didn't want to admit it – that in the space of the last few days, he had become everything to her. It was too much – even Claire knew this – but these were extraordinary circumstances. It was more than the fact that he had saved her life and her wanting to return the favour, it was … she couldn't quite know what it was. It was like her life would be extinguished too if she had to see him die.

Through the wetness, she became aware of soft, gentle hands covering her own, tenderly forcing hers open so he could look at her face. Silently he kneeled in front of her and cupped her face in his hands, his face breaking with the intensity of the emotion. "I …" Claire finally raised her eyes to meet his, gloriously piercing dark eyes in the gloom. He seemed to be struggling with himself for the right words. "I hardly know you. But I feel too close … you're so young. You should be in high school practicing cheers and baking cup cakes. You don't deserve this. I can't … think clearly … with you." He gave a little laugh. "I wanted to protect you so badly I jumped off a building and I still don't know why. Pretty stupid, huh?"

Her tears stemmed. She hated it when she cried, her face became blotchy and red and generally unattractive. She hated that she had said such awful things to Peter when he was only trying to protect her, all the while knowing that there was every possibility that he could be dead in three days. And here she was, being a stupid, self-centred inconsiderate girl. "Not stupid at all." She sniffed and closed her eyes, ashamed by the serious hissy fit she had just thrown.

When she had the courage to open her eyes again, she found that their faces were so close they were almost touching. Their eyes locked, Peter's searching, murky as a glittering night in the gloom. He was so close she could smell him, feel his breath on her face, feel the rise and fall of it as he inhaled and exhaled on her skin. He ran a hand down the length of her cheek – gentle, sensitive hands Claire thought – in a caressing motion to stem the tears now silently coursing down her face.

He leaned in, planted a chaste kiss on her forehead. Claire had never felt so close to another person before, let alone a guy, and it didn't scare her a bit. It exhilarated her.

She knew this was Peter – her Peter. He would never let anything harm her if he could help it, and if they occasionally fought a little, it was to be expected. Her tears eventually died away, replaced with embarrassed sniffling as she broke their gaze. "I'm so sorry I said those horrible things to you." She wished she had a Kleenex now, because she was sure her face was an absolute mess. "I had no right. I was just … I could've been with you the last few weeks, to help heal you, if I knew. I dumped all that stuff back in the hospital on you and I didn't even know …"

"Hey, hey …" He murmured softly, pressing her to him without thought. "None of this is your fault. It's not anybody's fault. We'll get through it, you'll see." They sat, huddled together in the corner of the abandoned apartment, seemingly lost in the moment their ultimate bond was sealed.


	10. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight **

"**Enemies"**

Their emotional confrontation had left them listless, tired and drained. Peter hated seeing Claire so deflated, but he had been glad of the silence in the cab on their way to Mohinder's apartment. It had given him time to think and much more importantly, to breathe.

What she had said to him that morning and making him lose control of his own emotions – had brought home a truth that Peter had realised for days but had refused to admit. They were too close. He had known this since she had surprised him on his doorstep, but had pushed it to the back of his mind because more pressing things that required his attention.

But now he could no longer deny it. For two people whose lives had barely crossed – who had known each for hardly more than a few days – they were too involved. Obsessively, tenderly, desperately involved. Peter wasn't sure about Claire, but for him, what began as a journey on an impersonal mission to save the cheerleader had quickly become personal. Instead of the cheerleader, she was now Claire.

Their friendship was probably more damaging to Claire, being the much younger half of the two. She was only 17 for god's sakes, barely old enough to drive a car and not legally able to take a swig of alcohol for another 4 years, but here she was, running for her life. She was depending on him for survival and protection and what had he delivered? Gut wrenching, heart yanking confusion to an already complex situation.

In their defence, they had met under highly dramatic circumstances. What could have been more dramatic than 'saving the world'? Their fates had collided with the concatenation of their destinies, and now they seemed to be irretrievably linked, forced to play out their parts in their big, cosmic journey.

Peter was beginning to feel increasingly bitter towards destiny. Ando's running joke was that he wished that destiny would lose their number and at this moment Peter could not have agreed with him more. He hated this. When he had discovered his abilities – both Nathan and his own he supposed – he had been elated, triumphant. He had fought against his father's wishes for so long it had felt liberating to know that he truly was unique and different. The discovery of his ability was like a vindication of the markedly different path he had consciously taken in his life.

He was finally going to be somebody. What had he said to Nathan just before he had jumped off the building on that fateful day? 'It's my turn to be somebody now, Nathan.' But little did he know then, that everything he had done, all the roads he had taken had all been leading him to this. Being the ultimate cause of destroying the city he had grown up in. Was this what he had wanted? To be the somebody that would ultimately be responsible for destroying the city and killing millions of people along with it?

Peter almost wished he had the power to turn back time – Hiro's ability – to go back and change the past. Just wipe out the innocence and naivety that had plagued him all his life. He should have been more like Nathan, more guarded in his acceptance of his new found abilities. He half-seriously wondered how long he would have to be around Hiro in order to pick up the other man's ability to bend time and space to do just that.

"Just here please." He motioned for the cab to let them out outside Mohinder's apartment building. They quickly proceeded up the stairs, Claire intent on avoiding Peter's searching eyes at all costs.

They were greeted at the door by Mohinder, looking even more sombre than usual, and two other men who looked terrifyingly familiar. One of them had horn rimmed glasses. Claire gaped, grabbing Peter's arm in panic. "Oh my god." Without thinking, without even pausing to look at Claire, they bolted as quickly from the apartment as humanly possible. Peter's sprint was hampered by a sudden, vivid stab of pain at the base of his skull, the headache that had subsided in Claire's presence returning in full force in an instant. Through his increasingly searing vision, he felt Claire's small hand in his own, tugging him as she raced ahead, intent on escaping the father that had lied to her all her life.

Footsteps raced after them. Peter knew with their non-existent head start, there was no way they would be able to outrun them.

It was the dark Haitian man that caught up to them first. He pulled Peter up as easily as he would have picked up a child, and Claire's father did the same with her. They struggled viciously against their attackers.

Mr Bennet – god, what was his actual name Peter wondered – released his daughter, holding up his hands in the universal sign of surrender. "Please Claire, I just want to talk." She whipped around, tearing Peter from the Haitian's grasp. Her father looked on imploringly. "I just want to talk, I swear."

Peter didn't have to turn around to imagine Claire's face at that moment. There was a long, charged pause before she stepped from behind Peter and looked her father square in the face. "You won't try to erase my memories?"

"I swear." Mr Bennet said solemnly.

"Swear on Grandma Bennet's life?" Claire asked, more forcefully.

"I swear on Grandma Bennet's life." Still eyeing her father suspiciously, she stepped into Mohinder's apartment, careful to keep her eyes on him the whole time. That was also the cue for Peter to follow behind her. One false move from either Claire's father or his associate and he would grab Claire and dive out the window. Not his preferred way of exiting a building generally, but he seemed to have had a quirky penchant for diving out of buildings lately.

Mohinder had been hanging back, careful to keep himself out of the scene. Seeing that a temporary truce had been concluded, he stepped out, warily eyeing the others.

Peter's head was still killing him and what was worse, the physical struggle against the Haitian had made his entire body break out in cold sweat. That was when he realised that there must have been some brutally concentrated power in that room. The pain racking his body made him just the wrong side of hostile. "What the hell are they doing here?" He asked Mohinder.

Mohinder quickly recounted his conversation with Mr Bennet and the Haitian, right up until Claire and Peter's interruption. Mohinder sighed, his weary frame leaning against the peeling walls. "He told me how Eden died. When I hadn't heard from her, I feared the worst. Now I know she was special, and I never saw it. Now it's too late."

"Whose Eden?" Claire asked blankly, clinging to Peter and keeping her distance from the others.

"She lived next door." Mohinder replied crisply. If Peter had not gotten to know him in the past few weeks, he would not have noticed the gleam of grief in the other man's eyes. "Next to my father. She was his only friend just before … just before he died. The last message she left me, when I came back to New York, she said she was going to avenge my father. Kill the man that killed him. Sylar. But I never heard from her again."

"Sylar wanted her power. But he never got it."

Claire asked quietly, careful to not look at her father. "Was she like us?"

"She had the power of persuasion. She could convince others to do her bidding. It would have made Sylar nearly invincible." Mr Bennet replied, just as quietly.

Peter was only half-listening through the haze of pain that was now assaulting him. He knew that it must have been either the Haitian man or Claire's father that had an ability of some sort – and a powerful one at that – to make him feel it this intensely, even with Claire in the room to heal him. The pain, like a thousand red hot pokers puncturing the base of his skull, nearly made him crumple to his knees and cry with a decidedly un-manly fervour.

The Haitian, who had been silent all during the discussion, suddenly looked piercingly at Peter. Then just as abruptly, his pain disappeared. Peter panted loudly, making the others turn. "What did you do to me?" Peter asked softly in the stifling silence.

Claire's father turned to face him curiously. "Mr Petrelli?" The way the older man said his name made Peter feel like a science experiment, something to be prodded and studied. Which he probably was to Claire's father. Peter's dislike for the man increased. "Are you feeling all right?"

Technically, he no longer had to lie. The Haitian man had done something to either switch off his powers – or block it, he didn't know which – that had been more effective than anything Peter had achieved with Claude. He wished he could have talked to the silent man away from Mr Bennet's prying ears. "I'm fine." Peter breathed, straightening his frame for emphasis.

Claire's father was still eyeing him suspiciously and it was Claire that finally drew his scrutiny away from Peter. "What are you doing here Daddy?" She asked pointedly, hostility still dripping like hot lava from her voice.

Sensing that his daughter was not in a conciliatory mood, Mr Bennet's tone reverted to being business-like. "Sylar escaped from our custody. The last read of him we got, we know he was heading for New York. For you."

Claire shivered visibly, involuntarily clutching her body as if for protection. She seemed particularly small at that moment. "Where is he?"

"We don't know." Mr Bennet took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes wearily. It was the first sign of stress that Peter had seen escape the older man. "That night we came to Mr Petrelli's apartment –", his gaze shifted to Peter, "he was there."

"How did you know he was going to be there?" Peter asked accusingly. The irony of having a conversation with the man that he and Claire had jumped off his building to get away from was not being lost on him.

"We didn't. We were staking out your apartment because I knew Claire was there." That particular disclosure made Peter suck his breath in. Those two days that Claire had stayed with him, and her father had been lurking outside the whole time? It was creepy in the extreme.

Mr Bennet replaced his glasses. "We erased his memories of Claire while he was in our custody. That slowed him down; but he must have kept records of people somewhere, it's the only way to explain how he knew about her. And you, Mr Petrelli." The skin on the back of Peter's neck crawled. He now fully understood the fear Claire must have felt on knowing that a psychotic murderer was after her. Or more accurately, after her brain.

"It's true. When I first came to New York, I found an address for Sylar in my father's notes. We – Eden and I – went there, it was full of notes about everyone, all the information he could find. Now I think it was all the information he was able to steal from my father." Mohinder confirmed. "He is a very dangerous man."

"Here's a question. How do you know he hasn't followed us here? You've led him straight to us."

"Rest assured Peter – can I call you Peter? We're going to take precautions." Claire's father answered a little brusquely. "There is no way I'm going to let that man hurt my little girl." Peter didn't trust Claire's father as far as he could throw him – which wouldn't be very far at all, judging from their respective builds – but Peter sensed that he had meant every word of that statement. It made Peter feel oddly better. Both of them had something in common now – protecting Claire at all costs.

"How do you plan on catching him?" Peter asked abruptly. He didn't like the idea of Sylar running around New York stalking them while Peter was trying to keep himself from blowing up. He didn't think he could handle one more crisis.

"We use you as bait." Mr Bennet said simply, as if he was merely reciting the grocery list.

Claire's eyes widened while Peter exclaimed. "Um, no!"

"It's the only way." Off even Mohinder's slightly shocked look, he elaborated. "Look, I know what's going to happen in three days. There isn't time to try anything else. You'll need to concentrate your energies on trying to prevent your destruction. There's no time."

Peter was floored. "How do you ..."

"I know a lot more than you would give me credit for Peter." Claire's father smiled, but there was no warmth behind it. "I've been aware of several of the others for a while now. Isaac Mendez, your brother. You I wasn't aware of until you saved my Claire. But I must say, you have an extraordinary ability, it's more powerful than you realise. You'll develop it in time."

Peter frowned. He simply didn't trust the older man and by the way that Claire was still standing, with her arm's crossed over her chest, she seemed to feel the same way too. He had no idea why Claire's father was being so forthcoming with them. But at the same time, he knew that there was no way that Mr Bennet was telling them everything he knew.

His head ached with all the intricacies of the situation he had found himself in the middle in. Peter would have given anything to return to the simple life of the ostracised hospice nurse at the moment.

Claire's next question stunned Peter. It quite simply had not occurred to Peter to ask. "Can you help Peter? Can you stop him exploding?"

To his credit, Claire's father seemed to have seriously considered the question. "I don't know Claire-bear." He replied thoughtfully, not noticing Claire's flinching from the familiar name. "There's no way of knowing what exactly triggers it. With more time, we could perhaps study him, monitor his brain waves and fluctuations. But with so little time …"

"I don't believe you." She hissed, her anger making her fearlessly step towards her father. "You've been running around studying everyone with abilities. I don't believe you can't help him."

"You're wrong Claire." This time Mr Bennet's tone held more force, sounding like what Peter imagined him speaking to a subordinate. "Our work has been concentrated exclusively on bringing out those abilities, not reversing them. The only thing I can offer is that I think Mr Suresh's supposition may be accurate – over the last few weeks, Peter has absorbed too much power too quickly. It's degrading his body. The same thing's happening to Sylar, his entire physical and mental make up is breaking down as we speak."

"Peter's nothing like Sylar." Claire spat angrily.

"You're wrong." Mr Bennet replied darkly, suddenly appearing less fatherly. "Peter and Sylar are in many ways two sides of the same coin. They both have the ability to siphon powers and use them as their own. The only difference is that Peter does not have to physically ingest the ability the way Sylar does. That's all."

"Ingest?" Claire said sickly, realisation dawning on her face. "You mean, he eats …"

His victim's brains, Peter added with revulsion. Hearing his ability dissected and compared so clinically to a raging homicidal lunatic did not make his day any better.

"So what do you suggest we do?" Peter asked quietly.

"Go about your day as if we never had this conversation. We'll follow you closely. Sylar will strike soon, it's in his nature. He's too hungry for new powers."

The thought of him and Claire being bait for Sylar made Peter's stomach decidedly queasy. Not only did he have himself destroying New York to worry about, he also had to worry about being brain meat for a hungry, power crazed psycho. His day couldn't get any worse.

Nodding tersely, Claire's father and the Haitian left them to their devices. Mohinder looked at them apologetically. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to stumble in on that. They just approached me this morning."

Peter waved it off. Now wasn't really the time to sulk about nuances and betrayal. What he really needed to know was whether Mohinder had made any headway with the vaccine. "I have something for you." A surprisingly boyish grin appeared on Mohinder's normally serious face. "I think I have it." He declared triumphantly.

"You have it? It works?" Peter asked excitedly.

Mohinder whipped around, rummaging through the piles of documents and books scattered over his table. Finally, his eyes landed on a small wooden box, the contents of which he produced to Peter. "This is the vaccine." He carefully passed the syringe into Peter's shaking hands. "You have to try it first, to make sure it works. It should only last for 24 hours. It's not a cure, but it should prevent you from degenerating any further."

Peter stared at the vaccine mutely, almost reverently, in his hands. It was quite possibly what was going to make the difference between his life or death.

* * *

The intense revelations at Mohinder's apartment did nothing to alleviate the tension between Peter and Claire. Picking up some Chinese takeout in the late afternoon for dinner, they returned to Claude's apartment, at a loss what to do. With Sylar potentially lurking about, it was hard for Peter to concentrate on practicing the techniques that Claude had taught him. He felt like they were sitting ducks, just waiting on getting their brains cut open by a homicidal lunatic who could strike at any second. 

Emotional control. That was what he was going to struggle with the most. All his life, Peter had been an emotional person. It was what had made him the black sheep of the Petrelli family and it was what had made him gravitate towards nursing. He remembered a particularly angry conversation with his father just before he had signed up for nursing school, trying to justify his decision to the man that had never been satisfied with his younger son's lack of ambition. Peter had felt no inclination to be a doctor even if his marks had allowed him the choice, which it hadn't.

"Are you going to use the vaccine?" Claire's quiet voice brought Peter out of his gloomy thoughts. While her tone was sedate, there was a ghost of a grin on her face.

"Yeah, I'll try it now." Smiling what he hoped was a mollifying smile, he pushed his sleeves up and extended his arm out for the injection. Claire silently opened the box and handed him the syringe containing the clear fluid.

Although Mohinder, a geneticist, had developed the drug specifically for him, Peter still felt trepidation at injecting it. It was untested and untried – on anything. There was good reason why pharmaceutical companies tested newly developed drugs on animals and conducted human trials, because results from the use of a new drug could have wholly unexpected results. But Peter didn't have the luxury of time. Taking a deep breath, he injected himself with the vaccine.

Claire looked on, holding her breath in anticipation. Her expression made Peter laugh, and the tension between them suddenly dissipated like morning mist in the sun. "Relax Claire, you can take a breath."

She ignored his jibe. "Can you feel it working?"

Peter stood, shaking his shoulders and chest. He didn't feel any different. "Not yet. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel." Almost as soon as he said that, he wished he hadn't. The headache that had racked him so viciously just before Claire appeared back into his life began to throb back to life. "I think it's working."

"How do you know?"

"My head feels like it's going to split open." He answered slightly tersely. "It was like that before you got here. The vaccine must be blocking my ability to heal, even with you around." Claire's apprehension mirrored his own. It was something he hadn't actually taken into account. Her healing ability had been the only thing that had made him feel almost fine, and now, through the waves of pain reasserting itself onto his fatigued body, he questioned the wisdom of that decision.

He swore, putting his hands to throbbing temples. Through the pain, he heard Claire shifting and standing up. She placed a cool hand into one of his. "Peter, take my hand." She said gently. Peter, his eyes now squeezed shut in an effort to lock out the pain, almost crushed her hand as she guided him out of the room. "Easy." She breathed.

She was softly steering him towards the bedroom where hopefully he could lie down. Peter only vaguely remembered the layout of the apartment but he knew that the same thought would be running through her mind. It was funny how now, with one decisive action, their roles had been reversed. She was the guide and protector, he her dependent charge.

Peter muttered inaudibly. He began hearing voices, which was an entirely new phenomenon for him. They were faint and incoherent, swimming around on the inside of his brain, whirling and spinning his head around until it made him dizzy and sick with nausea. He wanted to scratch them out by any means possible, even if that involved getting a can opener and popping his entire brain out to do it. But that would be doing Sylar's work for him.

He screamed then, an unbearable scream of pain. He felt it racking his body, twisting and contorting it like red hot pokers piercing through his eyes. Dimly, he realised they must have reached the bed just in time, because he had collapsed and was now lying down on something soft, something that was absorbing the sweat that now coated his body.

He heard shushing noises and somewhere at the back of the part of his mind that was still functioning, he knew Claire was sitting beside him. She was the source of the comfort, and young or not, Peter found himself clinging to her for dear life. If he could anchor that part of himself that was still conscious, perhaps he could hold on. Get past this, if there was a way past it.

"Claire …" Peter rasped heavily, feeling his consciousness slipping mercifully away from him. "Thank you …"

* * *

Shouts rang in his ears, jerking Peter awake. It took Peter a few long moments – and a sore, parched throat – to realise that he was actually the source of it. Invisible hands clung to him, holding him against the bed, only to morph into Claire's familiar frame. "Shhh, hey Peter, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay …" She was repeating it steadily like a mantra, but he could tell even in his dimmed state that panic edged her voice. Suddenly it faltered. "Please wake up Peter, please wake up. I'm scared, I'm really scared." 

Peter opened his eyes, blinking hard in the darkness. Thankfully, the excruciating pain had disappeared, leaving only lethargy in its wake. He was even able to reach up and take one of her golden curls in his fingers, curls that cascaded like a torrent of golden rain down the side of her face. He twirled it as her crystal blue eyes looked down at him wondrously. "Hey."

She had been crying. Tears still freely streamed like rivers down her face but at least she was smiling as well. "I'm glad you're back." Her fear – not for herself but for him – prompted a surprisingly boyish grin from him.

For a moment he forgot about the dream that so roughly jerked him awake, but then it came back crashing down on him, screaming for attention. Peter gulped furiously for air, only one thought from his dream ringing in his mind.

Sylar was not going after Claire or Peter. He was going after Nathan.


	11. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine **

"**The Candidate"**

After Peter had explained – in rather garbled, drunken fashion, Claire would later tease him – his dream of Sylar and Nathan, he was able to sit up and drink a glass of water Claire forced onto him. He winced at the tightness of his muscles and watched as she tried to decipher his dream.

"So let me get this straight. You basically dreamed that you were following Nathan, going around doing his campaigning stuff. Then you … turned out to be Sylar following you following Nathan? How many of these wacky dreams do you have?" Claire finished curiously.

"Not that many." Peter admitted, gratefully noticing the complete absence of pain. "This is the first since … that other one."

"Oh." Claire frowned in confusion. "I'm still not sure what it's meant to mean."

"Don't you see?" Peter leaned forward, brushing dark, messy bangs out of his eyes. "Your father said Sylar was coming after us. But what if he wasn't? What if he wanted to just follow us to see where Nathan was. Maybe he found out about Nathan's ability and wanted to go after him."

"But you haven't even seen your brother since I've been here. And Nathan … I mean, isn't he running for Congress or Senate or … something? That's a pretty public person to stalk. It wouldn't be hard to know where his headquarters are or anything like that … not that I've ever tried to stalk anyone before." Claire was surprised to hear the rationality of the words coming out of her mouth. The words that tumbled out made her sound a lot older than she really was.

"I don't know." Peter seemed genuinely freaked out by his dream. "It makes no sense, but that's what I saw. I know it sounds crazy, but …"

"I think we both got doused with a huge can of crazy a few weeks ago and nothing sounds weird to me now. Especially not anything from you." Claire gave him what she hoped to be a comforting smile. A thoughtful expression crossed her features. "But remember what Isaac said future Hiro had said to him?"

"That Sylar had gone after Isaac?"

"Yeah. What if …"

"What if Sylar's been using us – _me _– to track down everyone? Isaac, Nathan, Hiro? Even Matt." They stared at each other in horror. "Oh my God, what have I done?"

Sensing his rising panic, Claire laid a restraining arm on him. "It's so not your fault. This Sylar guy is clearly mentally disturbed. We couldn't have known."

He didn't seem to have heard her. "I have to warn them. The others." He swiftly launched his body from the bed, so quickly that he needed to lean on Claire's shoulder to steady himself.

"Are you okay?" Claire asked, concern etched on her face. Peter panicking like this was beginning to freak her out a little.

Peter nodded, muttering frantically as he went to the living room where they had dumped their stuff. "Where's my cell? I need a cell, where's my cell?"

Claire joined in the search, finding Peter's cell in his jacket pocket where she suspected he always kept in. She handed it to calmly to him, stepping away from the pacing figure. In a flash of understanding, she knew why Peter's dream had distressed him so much. His sensitivity had made him relate easily to people, but that same sensitively had also cultivated a sense of responsibility about taking care of others. The thought that he had inadvertently led all his friends into danger would have churned that sense of responsibility into overdrive.

After making garbled calls to Isaac, Hiro, Matt, and lastly, to Nathan, he stared mutely at the cell in his hands. Peter had promised Nathan to drop by his campaign headquarters and talk about this properly like rational beings. Despite his plans, Peter seemed to be at a loss at what to do next. It was as if brain was breaking down with everything that had happened to him in the last few weeks.

"It's going to be okay." Claire whispered, leaning consolingly against his shoulder. She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around him, not daring even now to extend the unspoken boundaries of their friendship.

"How could you know that?" His face swivelled down towards hers, desperation clear in his brilliant dark eyes.

"Because you saved me." No longer caring about whether it was appropriate, she wrapped herself around him and gently leaned against his chest. She felt him exhale slowly, the tender pressure on the top of her head letting her know that Peter had allowed himself to rest his head on hers.

Through the heady thumping of his heart, she smiled. She had meant what she said. Everything will be okay, even if killed her.

* * *

Nathan's campaign headquarters was located centrally in the midst of Manhattan off a main street. Loud, colourful and brash, it fully epitomised what Claire had imagined Peter's older brother to be like. A large banner hung outside with Nathan's face plastered to the left of it, in case any passers by were at a loss as to who the headquarters belonged to.

Her image of him wasn't disappointed when she was finally introduced to the man himself. "So you're the cheerleader." Nathan smirked, rather unpleasantly Claire thought. "The reason why my brother spent a good half of the month in a coma in dullsville, Texas." Claire thought that last part was unnecessary but seeing Nathan's imposing frame, she remained resolutely silent and smiled flakily at him instead.

Peter furrowed his brows in disapproval. "Nathan, is there somewhere we can talk?" He asked pointedly.

"You read my mind." Claire smothered a grin as Peter rolled his eyes. He had obviously told Nathan everything that had happened to him in the last few weeks, and the older man seemed to find it amusing, especially at Peter's expense. Seeing Peter so riled up was strangely funny, although at the same time Claire wanted to wipe the smile off Nathan's face and force feed it to him for poking fun at the man who had saved her life.

He led them to a discreet entrance at the side of the building, backing out onto an alley not unlike the one Peter and Claire had landed in after their jump to freedom outside Peter's apartment. Ushering them through the seemingly endless maze of rooms, Claire lost her bearings quickly but realised that Nathan was leading them towards a back room on the second floor of the building.

Evidently Peter's older brother thought the less chance of being overheard the better. Claire found his egotistical paranoia annoying.

Nathan suddenly whipped around, hands on hips, clearly having come to an internal decision. "Okay, spill Peter. What the hell have you gotten yourself mixed up in and what do I need to do to get you out?"

"Why do you always assume it's my fault?" Peter gritted.

"Because that's the way you are. That's the way you've always been." Nathan snotted, his eyes narrowing. "In case you haven't noticed, the election's tomorrow. I don't have time to waste on this."

"Look, it's not about needing your help." Despite his frustration at Nathan, he closed the gap between them, placing a tense hand on his shoulder. "I came to warn you. There's a guy who comes after people with … abilities. People like us. He cuts their heads open and takes their brains … He's coming after us. You, me, Claire … and the others."

"What are you talking about?" Despite his bravado, Claire saw a flicker of worry flow across Nathan's eyes. She guessed that even he must have known Peter well enough to see how serious the situation was.

"This guy Sylar, he's after us. All of us." Peter's voice was already slightly frenzied. He looked like he was only barely keeping it together.

Nathan frowned, his gaze snapping to attention. "Sylar, like the watch?"

"What?" Peter breathed.

"Like the watch, 'Sylar'." Nathan elaborated. Seeing the stunned looks on their faces, he continued, sighing impatiently. "Don't you remember Peter? Dad loved antique watches, made us look at auction catalogues and stuff. Dad had an antique watch he loved to death. Said it came down from Grandpa and his dad before him. It stopped working a while ago, the old man was obsessed trying to find someone who knew how to fix it. I'd almost forgotten that." Nathan added softly, the shark-like contours of his face suddenly softening.

"I've never heard of it." Claire said quietly. Not that she was generally into watches, but brands she was aware of and she had never heard of the brand 'Sylar'.

"I guess you're just not that into watches." Nathan enunciated carefully. "You know, it's funny. I just remembered, Dad found a guy, Queens some place that could fix his watch. Said it'd take a few years, but Dad … he didn't mind. Said the guy was a genius, people had him restoring collectors items Dad couldn't wait to get his hands on."

"Yeah … Yeah, actually I remember that." Peter stepped forward, the blanket of panic lifting from his eyes for the first time that day. "He'd show us different watches. 'Time pieces' he called them."

"I'm almost positive it's a name of a watch. I've seen it somewhere."

Reminiscing about their father oddly made Peter and Nathan look a lot more like brothers. Claire could now see the family resemblance, especially in the faraway look now in both their eyes. "So you think Sylar's this guy's real name?" Claire blurted out before she could catch herself.

Instantly Nathan recalled himself from his reminiscence, his expression hardening again. "The cheerleader may be on to something."

"Her name's Claire." Peter muttered automatically. "And you're right, I don't think this is a coincidence. It can't be."

He rolled his eyes at his brother's dubious logic. Seeing Peter whip out his cell, he asked deprecatingly. "Who are you calling?"

Claire watched as he dialled Matt's number. "The FBI." Peter shot Nathan a dark look, as if daring him to object. She watched as Nathan rounded towards the window, seemingly lost in thought watching the street below.

After Peter informed Matt of their conjecture, Nathan turned back to them. "This guy Sylar, you think he's already found me, don't you? Otherwise why bother coming here?"

"Because you're my brother Nathan. We're family." Peter's quiet words seemed to affect his brother, because Claire noticed again how soft the older man's eyes could look when touched. "We have to stick together, even when you're being a jerk."

Seeing the sincerity in Peter's face, Claire had no doubts that Peter was the nicest, most caring person she had ever met in her life.

She had learned something really important from Peter in the last few days. Being around him, spending so much time with him, had given her a new perspective on the kind of person she now wanted to be. Far from being a burden, she began to think that having her ability was a gift. She liked the feeling and wondered whether it had contributed to Peter's insane dash from the east coast to come to her rescue in Odessa.

She wanted to laugh at herself. Between them, Peter and Zach had managed to turn a spoilt little brat of a cheerleader into someone who could actually give a damn about the world.

Peter's voice filtered through her thoughts. "Look Nathan, I just wanted to warn you. I have no idea whether he'd come after Heidi and the boys. I don't think he will, but … just in case."

"If he's coming after people with abilities, why the hell are you here?" Nathan barked.

"I had to warn you." Peter snapped.

"You ever heard of using a phone?" Only Nathan could manage to make aggressive disapproval look touching at the same time. "If what you're saying is true – and I need to seriously doubt that given your escapades this month – you shouldn't have come. I'm not going to be held responsible for anything happening to you."

"Gee, thanks." Peter replied sarcastically. It struck Claire as odd that Peter was being so acerbic to his brother. Of course, if she had grow up with an older brother like Nathan for the past ever, she would have a hard time playing nice too. His general behaviour and tone nevertheless struck a discordant note with her. "Look, if you remember what that watch dealer was called, I'd be interested. He may be our guy, or at least know who Sylar is. I'm sick and tired of running for my life being too scared to even look over my shoulder. I'm sick of running around New York like some human time bomb. I just want this _over_."

Nathan nodded absently. He was already dialling his security team to ensure the safety of his family and equally as important, of himself.

His careless dismissal of Peter seemed to have pushed all the wrong buttons. Peter turned, coughing slightly, and Claire noticed for the first time that his face was a little paler than usual. She hadn't seen it back in the apartment because it had been so dimly lit, and her concern for Peter's health had ironically made her so preoccupied that she only just now noticed his pallor.

Some friend she turned out to be. "Peter, are you okay? You look a little …" Claire was going to say sick, but thought better of it. He obviously didn't need to be told what he must have already been feeling. "… a little not okay."

It was just as well that Claire had noticed his pallor, because the next moment Peter's knees buckled and he would have collapsed onto the floor if Claire hadn't been quick enough to grab his arm. Nathan rushed forward to support Peter's other side and together they helped him to a weather beaten couch that obviously had seen better days. "What's the matter with you?" Nathan asked. Claire was relieved to see that Peter's shark-like older brother seemed to be at least as concerned about him as she was.

She wanted to spare Peter the effort of explanation so she did it for him. "He's sick. The others – Mohinder and Hiro and Isaac, they think he's been exposed to too many powers at the same time. It's probably what made him go into the coma. Mohinder developed a vaccine thing for him but it doesn't really seem to be working."

"He's still worried about exploding? He's not going to, is he? That was just a dream. A person can't explode and take out New York like a nuclear bomb." Even through his concern, Nathan's snideness couldn't be missed.

"He believes it." There was a beat, Claire continuing obstinately. "Peter believes it, so I believe it."

"You would." Nathan looked down at Peter who was now curled into a foetal position. Claire followed his gaze. Peter's hands were pressed against his ears and he was muttering to himself. After a while, Nathan grudgingly admitted. "There's something really wrong with him."

Claire was proud of herself for managing to reign in her sarcasm, instead saying in a neutral tone. "Yes, there is. Last night was … bad. It was like this –" They involuntarily glanced back to Peter again, who now moaning in pain. Her heart went out to him but there was nothing she could do to help. The helplessness made her feel nauseous. "But not as bad. Last night … not as bad."

"You were with him last night?" Nathan eyed her shrewdly. If any unsavoury thoughts crossed his mind, he was a politician enough to keep them to himself. He continued to scrutinise her for a few long moments and seemed to come to a decision. "You guys stay here for now. I need to go back downstairs, handle a few situations with the election. I can't begin to describe how bad my little brother's timing is." Almost as an after thought, he added. "And give me that number that Peter had for the FBI. I'll get one of my people to go through Dad's records, find out who this watch maker was. If what Peter says is true, the FBI should be out looking for him, not any of you people." Nathan put his hand on the door to close it. "And you stay with him. If he gets worse we'll have to send him to the hospital, you got that?" He was barking orders at her like some drill sergeant, but Claire couldn't care. Not while Peter lay there obviously in so much pain.

She nodded wordlessly. Soon Nathan was gone, and the only sound in the room was the distant rumble of traffic from the street below.

Claire couldn't say how long she sat on the end of the couch, staring listlessly at Peter. His moans and muttering had thankfully diminished and he know appeared to have drifted off into unconsciousness. Which, given his current condition, seemed to be more a blessing than a curse.

She debated whether to give Mohinder or Isaac a call. She thought that at least Mohinder should know that his vaccine didn't exactly do wonders for Peter. If anything, it seemed to be making him worse. She remembered that the effects of the vaccine was supposed to last for about 24 hours, so it should start wearing off soon. But since it wasn't supposed to have this sort of effect on Peter in the first place, she wasn't really counting on that a great deal.

Before Claire could do anything, Peter stirred. Claire couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard the words, "I can fly Nathan … You don't believe me … no one believes … I can fly."

"Peter, you're dreaming." She whispered into his ear, not caring whether he could hear her or not.

A sense of déjà vu washed over her. This was exactly how she had felt during her vigil at Peter's side all those weeks ago in Odessa. She had travelled so far since then, only to have ended up in exactly the same place. "It's okay." She breathed soothing, comforting words into his ear. She remembered her dad used to do exactly the same thing after her nightmares as a kid, and she knew that whether Peter could actually hear her words weren't important. What was important was the feeling that someone was out there, outside and above that nightmarish dreamscape that could tether you back to reality.

And then something happened that Claire hadn't expected. "Peter." Claire gasped, not able to tear her eyes away from the sight in front of her.

She hadn't expected a response, so she was shocked when his eyes fluttered open. "What?" But already comprehension and shock was dawning in his features as he realised what was happening.

He was floating six feet off the ground, with Nathan nowhere in sight.


	12. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

"**The Mission"**

Peter gasped, gave a shout and suddenly sprang into a sitting position. It felt like he had been electrocuted back to life. He heard Claire gasp beneath him.

Was Claire _beneath _him?

He looked down – quite a ways down really – and saw that her eyes were wide with shock. She was pointing at him with such amazement that he was about tease her about it, but then his brain caught up with what his body was doing.

Peter's throat felt dry and parched. It felt like he had been screaming for hours which couldn't have been the case. The last thing he remembered was arguing with Nathan about Sylar and then … nothing. Blackness. And now it seemed he was floating above the ground, hanging ungracefully in mid-air.

"Am I … dreaming?" Peter muttered, his voice scratched from the rawness in his throat.

Claire, still stunned, continued to stare up at him. "You're not dreaming."

"Am I …?"

"Yeah Peter, you are." Peter looked around the room and sighed. The past hour or so was coming back to him, moments filled with the most searing pain and confusion he had ever felt in his life. It was just as Claude had described it, only a thousand times worse. He felt the accentuation of the many powers he had absorbed in the last few weeks through his encounters with Nathan, Isaac, Hiro, Sylar, Matt Parkman – even Claire and Claude – coursing through his battered body. Everything was crashing against him, wave after wave, pounding and pounding and with each hit taking away a little of the defences he had so carefully built up in the past weeks.

They had been the worst moments of his life. But through it all, a part of him was aware that he wasn't completely alone. He couldn't see or touch or feel it, it was merely a shadow of a sensation that there was something or someone that was still looking out for him. Someone that encouraged him to hang on, just get through it, and everything will be okay. That there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Peter looked at Claire in wonder. "You were here this whole time, weren't you? You were with me the whole time."

She nodded, a little abashed to face the complete amazement on his face. She coloured in confusion under his scrutiny and choose to examine the minutiae of the couch he had been lying on.

"I felt you." He said, with such emotion that it forced her eyes back to meet his. Peter was probably coming off a little strong – he tended to do that sometimes – but he didn't care. Somehow it seemed really important to him that Claire know how much it meant to him that she had stayed with him through everything. He honestly didn't know whether he could have endured it without her. "You stayed with me, helped me. How did you …?"

"I whispered stuff to you." She gave a small, embarrassed laugh, flushing even redder. Peter hadn't been 17 in a long time, but even he knew that in the last weeks, the cheerleader he had rescued seemed to have grown into an amazing person with an astronomical capacity to help others. He had rescued her when she was just a mission to him but now he respected, even admired her. "I did the same sort of stuff when you were in your coma. Talked to you, told you things. I wasn't sure whether you heard anything." She shrugged. "I just thought it'd help, you know? To have someone there with you."

"It did. Thank you." Peter said softly. It felt slightly comical, hanging in mid-air having this serious conversation with an ex-cheerleader from Odessa, Texas, especially seeing as he had no idea how to get down. Which also begged the question – how was he even doing this in the first place? Was being in the same building as Nathan now enough to allow him to fly? Or intriguingly, was it no longer necessary for Peter to be around Nathan to access his power?

"Are you … doing this on purpose?" Claire asked timidly, almost as if his floating was freaking her out. Which, if that was the case, he couldn't blame her.

"I don't think so." He tried moving around, rolling himself out of position, but he wasn't able to get himself any lower. "I'm not sure what this is about."

"Well, I think you were dreaming about flying." Her expression grew thoughtful. "You were shouting – muttering – about being able to fly. About no one believing you were able to fly. Then right after you – flew."

"Floated more accurately." Peter resisted the urge to flap his arms around. Because that would make him really look stupid.

"Maybe if you tried doing what you were doing with Claude?" Claire suggested hopefully. "You know, using his Yoda mind mojo to control … whatever it is you're doing?"

Peter closed his eyes, gathering the tendrils of his thoughts together to try to weave it into a more coherent whole. That was one of the things that Claude had taught him – to visualise something he didn't entirely understand and translate it to something he could understand.

He breathed deeply, trying to relax the aching muscles in his body. He had been on edge for well over a few weeks and all the stress and tension was making its mark on him. Peter didn't know what he would do if he couldn't get down. He refused to dwell on that possibility.

Thankfully, after a few tense moments where he really feared that he would have to spend the rest of his existence hanging six feet in the air, he landed on the floor with a heavy thud, making him yelp in pain. Cursing loudly, he allowed Claire to help him up while he brushed off the dust cloud that had been dispersed by his landing. "That was … really not graceful. You're really quite a klutz, huh?" She asked playfully.

"As a matter of fact, I'm not." Being teased by a 17 year old girl didn't do anything for his ego.

"Well, you could totally not tell." Absorbed in brushing off a patch of dust off his chest, she marvelled aloud. "Does this mean you can do this now? Fly?"

"It's the first time it's happened. I'm not sure whether I can even do it again."

"It'd be cool though, wouldn't it?" Claire mused, absently rubbing her fingers in a circular motion over his chest. Peter tried to ignore the sensation it stirred within him. Now was definitely not a good time to address this issue. "To fly. What if you could do everything permanently? Think about it. If you could somehow control it, you could do anything the others could do. Bend time and space – whatever that means – paint the future … read minds. How cool would that be?"

It was an intriguing possibility. But with the countdown on his imminent death getting to the scary end of blast off, Peter didn't have the time to ruminate on the possibility.

* * *

"The vaccine didn't really work out that well." He wasn't blaming Mohinder at all, but regardless, Peter was disappointed that their whole experiment, for lack of a better word, hadn't worked out.

Even through the phone, Mohinder sounded more concerned than Peter was about the failure. The geneticist seemed to take it as a personal affront that the vaccine had failed to produce the desired effect. "I'll try again. These things … are really more trial and error. It would have equated to a scientific miracle if the first batch had been successful."

"Thanks man."

"It's going to work out Peter." Mohinder sounded grimly determined, comforting Peter somewhat. He seemed to believe that he could produce something to help and Peter had to trust that. He had nothing left to do but trust that his friends would come through in the crisis. "We're all doing our best. We won't let you down."

There was nothing more Peter could do besides wait for Mohinder to try again. "Has Isaac painted anything that could help us for tomorrow?" He absently glanced at Claire, who was busy twirling her hair, keen eyes roving about the room.

"Some. He's been quite busy actually." Peter doodled on the corner of the newspaper on the table, sensing some hesitation from the other man. "It's … starting to unfold. What's going to happen tomorrow. Perhaps you should come and see for yourself. You will know better than anyone how to interpret his drawings."

Peter thought about Nathan's expression on learning that he planned on going to Isaac's after having a physical meltdown earlier in the day. He sighed. Nathan would be mad no matter what he did at this point. Sometimes Peter thought that his mere existence hindered the smooth life that his brother had planned for himself and his family. The strange sense of isolation that had plagued Peter for the past seven months reasserted itself with full force. "Let Isaac know we'll be there later."

Hanging up, Peter realised it didn't even seem strange to him at this point that he assumed Claire was coming along with him. They had done almost everything together the last few days and she had certainly changed his life dramatically in only a short space of time. It was strange how one person could have such an impact on another merely by existing.

Claire, who was humming to herself, stopped to ask. "I take it we're going to Isaac's?" Off Peter's nod, she chuckled.

"What's so funny?" He asked suspiciously.

"Oh nothing. Just that Nathan's going to blow a gasket when you tell him. He was really worried about you there."

"Yeah?" It made Peter feel a little better to know that his brother wasn't always being intentionally acerbic to him. It reminded Peter of his childhood when Nathan was always his broad shouldered protector and he the loyal lieutenant in every adventure they had. Then they grew up and everything changed.

The doodle that Peter had been absently drawing on the newspaper caught his eye. He tore it hastily off to take a closer look. "What is it?" He heard Claire come from behind him, her eyes peering around his shoulder.

They both stared at the picture Peter had just drawn. "It's me." He breathed. "It's me fighting Sylar in front of the Natural History Museum."

* * *

To say that Peter was beginning to be freaked out would have been the understatement of the millennium. Not only had he been plagued by nightmares of his impending death over the past few weeks, he had also been in a coma, had reawakened, had run around New York chasing down every single lead he could find to stop what was going to happen, all the while being scared out of his mind that he would be the cause of millions of people losing their lives in a catastrophe of nuclear proportions. And now this? It surely wasn't a coincidence that everything seemed to be building up to something climatic tomorrow, perfectly on schedule.

"Do you think you drew the future?" Claire asked quietly as they crossed the street to Isaac's building. "You fly this morning, now you're drawing the future? That can't be an accident, right?" It struck Peter as funny, and not for the first time, that she clearly looked up to him for guidance, trusting him implicitly to do the right thing. Peter had never been in this position before. He had always been the baby of the Petrelli family, he had always been the one that had been looked after and indulged.

He had told Nathan that he wanted to be somebody. Peter just didn't imagine that being somebody involved being a protector and guide to a very young, scared cheerleader whose life he just happened to have saved.

Peter vacillated, climbing the stairs to the first floor. "I'm not sure. I've done it once before, but that was after I'd met Isaac."

"But you haven't even seen Isaac for a while." Claire pondered, watching as he rapped on the door. "Maybe this means you're starting to recall some of the powers you've absorbed before. You know, like what Claude said."

When they were admitted into Isaac's apartment, they found the whole gang there – Isaac, Simone, Hiro, Ando and Mohinder. Peter couldn't suppress a smile at the thought of his Justice League comics stashed away in his old room at the family mansion. Their coming together like this really seemed to be the League coming to life, except for it being not so glamorous and thankfully without the capes and costumes.

Even Matt and Audrey were present. This was getting more surreal by the minute. "We came with Mohinder." Matt explained, reading the question on Peter's mind. "He showed us some of the pictures he was able to get of Sylar's apartment before he cleaned out. We checked out his address in Queens, then checked out any shops that specialised in watch repairs like you suggested."

"Did you find anything?" Claire asked sharply, although Peter already knew the answer.

"One place. There was a watch repair guy who worked there, Gabriel Grey. Hasn't been seen in six months though." Audrey pulled a worn employee badge, encased in plastic, from her jacket pocket.

Peter and Claire both peered closely at the picture. There was no question that it was the same guy that had hunted Claire down and had almost taken her life in Texas. Just staring into his cold, steely eyes sent chills down Peter's spine. This was the person who wanted almost all of them dead, or more accurately, wanted to remove their brains and eat them in order to absorb their abilities. It was like a really bad B-grade horror movie. "Yep, that's him." Claire shivered involuntarily. "That's Sylar."

"We still can't work out what exactly he's capable of. So far, we're speculating that he's got some form of –" Here Audrey swallowed, as if not believing what she was about to say. "Telekinesis, that's how he's about to take out the brains of his victims without leaving any trace evidence. He's also got some form of control or invulnerability to metal." Off Simone's questioning look, Audrey explained. "Matt almost emptied a whole clip into him but he just got up again. Didn't seem to affect him."

Matt stared intensely at Peter, who had to admit that reading each other's minds was a lot faster way of communicating. _"He's got more than one ability." _Peter surmised, a hint of a smile touching his features at their unusual mode of communication. _"He can travel great distances in a short space of time – I saw him get up a flight of stairs in the blink of an eye. Not sure how he did it though." _

"_So not only is this guy a homicidal maniac, he's got more powers than all of us put together?" _Matt asked incredulously.

"_Something like that." _Peter acknowledged, feeling disheartened.

Peter then updated the others on everything that had happened to them since the last time they had all met up. When he got to the part about exhibiting powers that morning, Mohinder interrupted him, excitement shining from his eyes. "Wait, this is different."

"Yeah, it is." He tried to reign in his sarcasm, but wasn't sure how successful he was. Some traits just ran in the family.

"When did this start happening?" Mohinder asked shrewdly, making Peter feel like he was being cross examined.

"Today. Just today."

"And you took the vaccine last night?" Peter now understood what he was getting at.

"Yeah. It – wasn't pretty. I wasn't able to function properly until this morning. It was lucky that Claire was there." Mohinder started pacing the room, mumbling half to himself and half to the rest of them. The others, including Peter, stared at him in consternation.

"Mohinder?" Simone asked for the group. "What are you thinking?"

Mohinder stopped pacing abruptly. "I think." He suddenly rushed to his battered satchel, rummaging papers around. "I think the vaccine actually enhanced Peter's ability, to the point where he could start accessing the powers he'd previously only absorbed temporarily." He took out a few pages, gesticulating in excitement. "See here. Instead of taking this cluster in isolation, I should have instead considered the interaction of these segments."

Peter looked on in confusion. Nothing in that last sentence made any sense to him and he had a vague background in science. One glance around the room told him that everyone else felt the same way. "Come again, in English please?"

"The vaccine was supposed to block your ability to absorb the powers of those around you by neutralising specific gene. But, instead of remaining neutralised, it effectively turned inward. The gene that gives you the ability to mimic others mimicked itself, but turning in, searching for those abilities you've previously copied. Somehow, each time you absorb something, it must be retained in your genetic make up in some form, to be accessed at a later date. It copied that retained information and manifested itself. It's absolutely fascinating!"

"That's fascinating." Isaac parroted dryly. "But how is that going to _keep _Peter from exploding? Isn't … enhancing his ability to manifest powers going to overload him more, if you're right?"

That brought the excited geneticist crashing back to reality. "Oh." He murmured sheepishly, looking deflated. "I guess it doesn't really help that much."

"Depends on the way you look at it though." Claire piped up. Seeing everyone's eyes on her, she flushed. "I'm sure I'm just being stupid."

"No, let's hear it." Peter had spent enough time with Claire the last few days to know the intelligence that hid beneath her school girl exterior. She may have been sheltered from a lot of unpleasantness that the world had to offer, but she listened and she remembered. The discussions they had over the past days had told him at least that much about her. He walked to her, hoping that his physical proximity might give her more encouragement. "Come on Claire, it's okay. No one's going to bite."

She took a deep breath, steeling herself. "The vaccine thing's still doing what it's supposed to do, isn't it? I mean, it sounds like it's still blocking Peter from absorbing new powers. He's not feeling any sicker around you guys now, is he?" She looked at Peter anxiously. "Are you?"

"No. I'm not. I feel fine. A lot better than this morning."

"So I guess, anything on top of that is a bonus. I mean, if it doesn't end up hurting him more …" Peter was impressed. She was right, and it seemed so obvious now she had pointed it out. It was certainly easy to underestimate Claire, seeing her open, trusting expression and sparkling blue eyes. It was easy to not see past the cheerleading outfit to the intelligent girl underneath.

They moved on to look at Isaac's collection of drawings. Now that he was able to paint the future without resorting to heroin, he was free to concentrate and direct his mind to painting specific events.

Predictably, Peter nor the others could make any definite sense of the obscure drawings. There were eight panels in all. Some Peter privately conceded were pretty obvious and actually matched some segments of his vision he first had in Odessa, like the sixth panel that showed Claire, in tears, running away from a distraught looking Peter, and the seventh panel, that seemed to show Nathan and Peter looking at each other with serious expressions on their faces. Like they both knew he was going to die.

The rest of the panels were harder to decipher. The first one showed a tall, shapely blonde, a young African American man and a small boy with curly hair, with the Empire State building in the background. The second was a close up of Simone, who either looked scared or concerned – it was hard to tell which. The third had Isaac, Hiro and Ando in the foreground with an ominous shadow falling behind them. The time on Ando's watch read 10.38PM, but there was no way to tell what day it was referring to. The fourth panel showed a man on the ground, his skull sliced open. Peculiarly, the man was bathed in a kind of orange glow, as if on fire. The fifth panel had two figures facing each other on top of two separate buildings. From the angle and distance, it seemed like they were either at a stand off, or preparing for a show down.

There was no way to know for sure which events followed which. They were all involved in a guessing game with the highest imaginable stakes. Getting something wrong could be the difference between life and death.

For Peter, worst of all was the last panel. It showed Peter – unmistakeable in his favourite coat turned up at the collar and a navy blue shirt he knew for a fact he owned – looking up into the sky, arms out, palms facing skywards, streaks of fire breaking through his face to form an "S" symbol, bathing everything around him in shimmering luminescence. The sight of his impending death made him feel nauseous.

He ran to the bathroom and hurled the entire contents of his stomach into the toilet. Luckily for him, he hadn't had that much to eat that day, so the process actually didn't take that long. He steadied himself, leaning against the cool tiles, his entire body shaking with fear and dread at what was going to happen to him.

Claire and Simone were waiting anxiously outside the bathroom door, Simone with a glass of water at the ready. "I'm okay." He whispered weakly, taking the glass gratefully. He was a nurse so logically he knew that nausea and vomiting usually went hand in hand, and it really wasn't such a big deal. He hated that Simone had to see him like this though.

Claire looked on in sympathy and placed a gentle hand on his arm to steady him. The warmth of her touch seemed to flow through him, instantly making him a lot better. He continued to marvel at the effect she seemed to have on him.

When Peter felt he was able to rejoin the group without further embarrassing himself, Matt was postulating on the meaning of the fourth panel. "I'm telling you, I think this is Ted Sprague." He appeared to have been arguing with Audrey, who was showing clear disdain of the idea.

"What makes you think it is? Because he has flames coming off him?"

"Well, yeah." Matt rounded on her, then turned his attention back onto the painting. "Ted Sprague is the only person we know that fits this description. His ability to … I don't know what you'd call it, but he leaks radiation. These are radiation waves coming off him."

"Look like fire." Hiro said dubiously, with Ando nodding in agreement.

"And to be fair to Audrey, I paint people I don't know all the time. None of us may know who this guy is." Isaac chimed in to Matt's chagrin. "It probably someone none of us knows." Matt huffed and walked away. Peter shared Matt's sense of frustration, but he had to admit that the others had a point.

"_I know I'm right." _Matt added fiercely.

"_Yeah, well … the others have a point too. It's a good idea though. You think Sylar could be after this Ted guy?" _

"_If I'm right – yeah. And getting his power too. It'd make him nearly untouchable. Ted Sprague couldn't control his ability, but I'm laying bets that Sylar's more than capable of working it out."_

"_Radiation …" _Peter mused, horrified at the implications. _"That means he could attack anyone just by coming close to us?" _

"_Well, I guess anyone besides Claire. And maybe you, if your wonder boy status keeps improving." _

Claire was looking at Matt and Peter curiously, no doubt having already put two and two together. Far from looking offended at being excluded, she seemed bemused. "Care to share with the rest of the class?"

That reminded Peter of his own drawing that morning (he was of course using that term rather loosely). Not having any shred of the artistic ability that fuelled Isaac's paintings, his offering was humble at best. "I think this is me fighting Sylar near the Natural History Museum." He rushed on, waiting for someone to contradict him. "I think he's connected to all this. I mean – Isaac's paintings, my dreams … I think this guy Sylar's somehow important in deciding what's going to happen. I think he's going to come after us and somehow he gets mixed up in everything."

To his surprise, no one contradicted him. Peter liked the sensation of being taken at his word and not being questioned relentlessly. "That's what my conclusion would be." Mohinder concurred.

"Have you seen him?" Audrey asked curiously. "Mohinder told us about his visit from Bennet, said Sylar was coming after you two."

Peter shook his head. "He will though, I'm sure of it. I saw it in my dream." To his own surprise, he had never been so sure of anything in his life.

"So I guess that's it then." Isaac concluded, looking at the others for approval. "We can only do our part. The rest is … up to you." Peter tried to not shrink under the gazes, especially Simone's, whose brilliant eyes were shining with unspoken emotion.

"You all take care of yourselves, all right?" Peter said, more of a statement than an actual question.

"You do the same." A ghost of a smile floated onto Isaac's sardonic expression.

They all stared at each other awkwardly. If they didn't have an opportunity to meet up again, this could potentially be the last time all of them would meet. Peter examined every face, consciously committing it to memory and he knew the others must have been doing the same. Because the chances were, not every one of them was going to make it.


	13. Chapter Eleven: Part I

**Chapter Eleven**

"**The Last Three"**

"Where the _hell_ have you two been?" Nathan demanded angrily as soon as Peter and Claire returned to his campaign headquarters.

"I left a message with one of your aides." Peter leaped in defence, the anger in his eyes matching the sparks that flew out of his brother's. Claire stood politely off to one side, content just to watch their bickering. The family resemblance was all too obvious now. "We weren't gone long."

"From what I hear, a few minutes is all this Sylar guy needs to finish you or your precious cheerleader off." Nathan huffed. "If you wanted to go somewhere, I could've had one of my security guys give you a ride."

Peter winced. Claire wasn't entirely sure whether he was being obstinate or just embarrassed that he hadn't thought of it himself. On the surface, Peter and Nathan were poles apart in personality, but once that surface was scratched, their pride, obstinacy and willingness to achieve their goal at whatever cost was painfully apparent in both of them.

Nathan's temper was just held in check by Peter agreeing to remain at campaign headquarters until Sylar had been apprehended by the FBI. Grumbling, they were only spared more of Nathan's tirade by a phone call that he then scurried off to answer.

Claire watched as Peter planted himself at the plain wooden table in the corner of the room, crossing his arms petulantly. She wasn't overly fond of Nathan's abrasiveness, but his sarcasm tended to wash over her like water off a duck's back. But Nathan obviously bothered Peter a great deal. It was another side of Peter that she had seen in the past few days, another thing that made her realise that even heroes were people too.

She realised that her perception of him had subtly changed since coming to New York. She no longer thought of him only as her hero. Rather he was Peter, someone who she looked up to and cared about but he was also her friend, her protector.

Following his lead, she sat on the couch on the other side of the room, surreptitiously glancing at him. He flicked his bangs back in annoyance, dark eyes roving around as if looking for something to occupy him. Her mind wondered back to the conversation she had with Simone outside Isaac's bathroom while they had been waiting for Peter to recover from his nausea.

It had been a strange conversation. For one thing, Simone had spoken to her like an equal and for another, they had naturally found themselves talking about Peter. "So how is he?" Simone had asked in her deep, lustrous voice.

Claire had shrugged, guilty glancing at the closed door. She had to keep her voice low. "It's been tough, the last day or so. It was really bad last night and this morning, he was just … in so much pain. Like he couldn't even hear anything else, he was just completely in his own head just screaming. It was horrible."

Sympathy had welled in Simone's eyes. Strangely enough, seeing it made Claire herself tear up. "And you stayed with him?" The older woman produced a Kleenex which Claire took gratefully. "That was very brave of you. My father died recently. It's … really hard to watch someone you care about suffer so much. It takes a special type of courage that not many people have. Peter has it." They both glanced toward the still closed door. "I'm glad you have it too."

Claire could only nod mutely. She had opened her mouth to protest that she wasn't as brave as she should be, but Peter had chosen that moment to declare himself fit for duty.

Claire mused on that last thought. Did she have that special type of courage? Peter had taken so much onto himself the last few weeks. He had saved her from Sylar and now he was trying to save New York. If the entire world depended on her, would Claire Bennet be able to come through?

"What're you thinking about?" Peter's voice interrupted her thoughts. She noted with satisfaction that he had lost his disgruntled look and had returned to the more good natured version of Peter Petrelli that she was more familiar with.

She sighed somewhat melodramatically, going with the first random thing that popped into her head. "You're quite hot, you know." She stated matter-of-factly, apropos of nothing. She wanted to lighten his mood and teasing him about his comic book hair and his metro tendencies could do the trick. "My friends back at school would _die _if they saw you."

Despite his years, she could see a faint spread of red over his cheeks. It actually made him a look a shade or two more normal, replacing his pallor. "Really?" A smile twitched on the corners of his mouth, making his crooked bottom lip even more obvious. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"It's not a conclusion, it's an observation." She said dismissively. It was what her bio teacher used to say every class.

He made an incoherent noise. "Interesting observation."

"I'm just saying." Claire continued, relieved to see his entire demeanour brightening. If the poor man was going to have to deal with impending disaster tomorrow, the least she could do as a friend was to boost his ego a little. "Although I think it's really to do with the hair. Can't say for sure I'd be willing to make that observation without it."

She had made him laugh. "I won't make any plans to cut it off then." His face darkened, reminded of his impending doom and Claire could almost read the thought that went through his mind. If he survived another day.

He got up, stretching his lean frame. Crossing the room in a few quick strides, he sat beside her on the couch, sinking deep into it. "Can you promise me something?" He asked seriously, his eyes suddenly filled with emotion.

"Anything." She would do anything for him.

"Promise me … that when the time comes, you'll walk away. You'll walk away from me."

Claire blinked a few times to make sure she had heard right. This was precisely what she had told him she _wouldn't _do. And now he was going to make her promise to be a coward, right Simone had said she had a special type of courage? "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean, Claire. You need to walk away from me when I ask you to."

Her eyes filled with tears. "This is about your dream, isn't it? You dreamed that I was going to run away from you and now you think it has to happen. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"It's not stupid." Now Peter was the calm, rational one and Claire the petulant child. "I need to know you'll be okay when the time comes. I didn't jump off two buildings for you just to watch you die." He said gently. "Promise."

Claire swallowed, her throat dry. "No."

"Promise me." He shifted closer to her, so close she couldn't tell where she ended and he began. She stared stubbornly down into her hands and refused to meet his gaze, even when he placed one of his smooth hands onto hers. "Please Claire, I need you to do this for me." He whispered.

She wasn't going to cry. She had cried enough for an entire army over the past few weeks and try as she might, she couldn't deny Peter anything, even if it would end up killing her with shame. "Fine." She gritted, hating him for extracting that promise from her.

"You promise?" He said shrewdly. She felt his eyes bore into hers but she still refused to meet them.

"Promise." It felt like she was betraying him in some way and it made her feel sick. She wouldn't be playing the hero after all. She would be playing the scared little girl, running away from disaster like her hero wanted.

He must have sensed that he had hurt her deeply, because the next thing she knew, his arms had wrapped around her small frame and his face was buried into the crook of her neck. Claire got the strange feeling that it was a gesture that comforted both of them, steeling them for the events to come.

* * *

The next time Claire saw Nathan was about an hour or so later. He exploded into the room with the full force of his personality, looking if possible even more pissed off than he was before. He literally threw the phone at Peter, who managed to catch it just in time. "It's Heidi, for you." 

Claire raised her eyebrows, suppressing a smirk at how put out Nathan seemed. Peter gave his brother a weird look before speaking. "Heidi?"

Claire and Nathan were forced to eavesdrop on Peter's side of the conversation. She was relieved to hear Peter start to laugh and joke with his sister-in-law. She had been scared at how overwrought and emotionally destroyed he seemed an hour ago.

Peter hung up, tossing the phone back to Nathan playfully. "Your wife says you're off the hook now." His smirk widened at the scowl on Nathan's face.

"She called me, then made me hand my own cell to you. Just so she could hear me suffer."

"Have I mentioned how much I love Heidi?" Peter rejoined, obviously enjoying getting one up on his brother.

Nathan rounded on his brother. "What the hell did she say to you?"

"She did your dirty work for you." Claire was also enjoying how cheerful Peter looked. If Nathan had to suffer a little to bring it about, she was completely okay with that. "Said you were a jerk and overreacted like you usually do." He added roguishly. "But it's only because you _care_."

Nathan smirked sarcastically. "Yeah, you're the younger sister she always wanted."

"That's all you got? You're reverting to old material." Peter expertly dodged Nathan's attempt to smack the back of his head and for a moment, Claire caught a glimpse of what Peter's relationship with his brother would have been like before all the craziness invaded their lives.

Their playful mood was rudely interrupted by Nathan's cell. Swatting his brother away with one hand, he answered with the other. "Yeah?"

Peter stopped as the smile dropped off Nathan's face. A moment later Nathan's expression had turned into violent anger. "I told you not to call me." He hissed. Seeing the mixture of curious and alarm on Peter's face, he strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"What was all that about?"

Peter shrugged blankly, following Nathan out of the room. "Not sure. But I'm going to find out."

Claire didn't have to wait long before they both returned, Nathan looking – as if she couldn't have guessed – even more angry and annoyed than before while Peter looked concerned but determined. "What was all that about?"

Claire got the impression that this was a game the Petrelli brothers were used to playing. "I told you, stay out of it Peter. It's none of your business."

"Since when did that stop me?" The bickering continued for a while before Nathan relented.

"Okay, fine. Fine." Nathan stomped to the other side of the room and stared out the window. "It was a woman. I helped her out in Vegas. Now she's in New York and wants me to hide her for a few days."

Peter crossed the room, facing his brother. "What do you mean, hide? What's she hiding from?"

"God I wish I had a drink right now." Nathan looked down, cocking a sardonic eyebrow. "I expect the law. Or maybe Linderman. Or maybe both, I don't know."

"You're not going to _help _her are you?" Peter asked incredulously.

Nathan sighed. "I don't have any choice. She said she'd tell Heidi we had an affair if I didn't."

Claire sucked in her breath. She had no idea these sorts of things really happened to real people, it was like watching a soap opera come to life right in front of her. "Did you?" Peter asked sharply.

Nathan denied it vehemently. "No. But that doesn't mean it can't hurt her. I can't let her do it to Heidi, she's been through enough. You _know _that."

"I do." Peter looked up to his brother in determination. "Which is why I need to help."

To say Nathan disbelieved him would have been an understatement. Say what she wanted about his personality, but Nathan had a very expressive face. "I don't think so. I got my own back on this one."

That stopped Peter in his tracks. "What're you going to do?"

Nathan took out a handkerchief, wiping his hands carefully on it before putting it away. "I'm going to meet with her. Give her some money, whatever. Get her out of here."

"Hey, Peter." Claire was hesitant to interrupt their argument. She wasn't sure whether she was reading the situation correctly but no one had ever complained that she was too quiet for her own good. "We've still got the keys to Claude's apartment. That'd be a good place to hide."

She was rewarded with a smile from Peter. "Yeah, she's right." Peter quickly outlined a plan to Nathan, which was for Nathan to meet with the woman at a more discrete location nearby and give her the keys and address of Claude's apartment. Peter and Claire would tail Nathan at a comfortable distance making sure nothing serious happened to him.

While Nathan looked sceptical at first, he eventually agreed, very ungraciously Claire thought, seeing as _they _were helping _him_. Claire thought it was a sensible plan. Of course, she was slightly biased since it was Peter's plan, but since Nathan finally agreed she figured it must have had some merit.

The meeting was scheduled in the late afternoon. There was nothing to do for Claire and Peter until then.

* * *

For what seemed like the umpteenth time since her arrival in New York, Claire found herself walking in a creepy side alley, shadows and cockroaches seemingly hiding in every nook and cranny. She turned to Peter who was walking confidently beside her. "Why are these meetings always in some dark, creepy alley?" 

Peter gave her a crooked smile and winked at her. She was glad he had recovered his spirits enough to mock her fear. "You scared? Don't worry, I'll protect you. Remember, I _am _your hero."

Now he was actually mocking _her._ She punched him playfully but as hard as she could, making Peter yelp in pain. Nathan, who was walking a couple of metres or so in front of them, whipped around and gave them a dirty look. "Will you guys keep it _down_?" He hissed. "Every Tom, Dick and Harry will know you're following me."

Peter and Claire shared a conspiratorial smile. If nothing else, annoying Nathan was entertainment enough for her. Peter gave her arm a brief squeeze and whispered into her ear. "I'm enjoying irritating Nathan."

She giggled, smothering it dutifully before Nathan glanced back at them again. "Me too."

Nathan rounded the corner and stopped in the middle of the street. Although it was still afternoon, the sun's long rays were already creeping up the buildings along the alley. Peter spied a dumpster nearby and hid himself behind it, gesturing for Claire to follow.

They waited. Claire scrunched her nose in disgust. Although they were not technically inside or even on top of the dumpster, the stench of days old rubbish still assaulted her senses. Why she continually found herself in such situations was beyond her. She found herself fervently wishing for her beautiful room at home, full of things that reminded her of her happy childhood.

She spied some movement in the corner of the alley. She squeezed Peter's arm, alerting him to the statuesque blonde who was striding confidently, if a little furtively toward Nathan, with a tall African American man and surprisingly, a small boy in tow. A faint stirring in Claire's memory tugged at her, but she couldn't quite anchor what it was.

Nathan had evidently not expected the woman to come accompanied judging by his furious expression. It was lucky Peter had insisted on tagging along after his brother, otherwise Nathan would have been at a serious disadvantage. "I told you to come alone." He said angrily, his tone even carrying back to Peter and Claire.

"Yeah well, my husband didn't exactly trust your honour enough to let me come alone." She sauntered.

Nathan sneered, holding up his hand. "That's close enough." He reached into his breast pocket and removed the keys to Claude's apartment. He tossed them to her while repeating the address. "You got what you wanted." His voice lowered and for the first time Claire saw menace in his face. It was something she was sure separated Nathan from his brother. "If you ever come near my wife or family, you're dead. I don't care who you are or who you work for."

"Relax Nathan. I'm not going to hurt your precious family. I'm just doing everything I can to protect mine."

Before Nathan had time to reply, there was strange crackling noise, making Nathan and the others look up. Claire was sure it must have been a trick of the light, but from her vantage point she swore she had seen a dark figure blink into existence right in front of Nathan.

Peter realised what it was before anyone else did. "Nathan, look out!" He shouted, a split second before the figure came into the light, making Claire gasp in fright. Her nightmare had just materialised out of thin air in front of her.

Sylar came fast at Nathan, swinging his arm in a horizontal motion designed clearly to take the top of his head off. Nathan dodged just in time by launching himself into the sky. There he hung helplessly in mid-air, appearing to be having trouble controlling his motion.

The woman who had been blackmailing Nathan a moment before rushed in from the other side, striking Sylar viciously in the back with such force he slammed into the wall, bricks and mortar crumbling onto him from the contact.

The kind of blunt force exuded on him would have killed any normal person, but Claire realised with a sinking feeling that Sylar was anything but normal. Far from being hurt, he was able to pick himself off the floor and brush off the debris. Rounding on he, he gave her a vicious backhand which propelled her all the way out onto a second floor fire escape nearby. She landed with a heavy thud.

"Niki!" The man who had come with her rushed to her rescue. Claire's eyes widened as he appeared to dive right through Sylar, grabbing his ankles on the way through and pulling him into the other side of the alley. They both disappeared like mist through the wall, but just as suddenly, half of Sylar's body reappeared, his bottom half inexplicably stuck into the wall. A split second later, the man's head reappeared from the wall, shouting at the boy. "Micah, run!"

The boy – Micah – sprinted down the alley. Peter looked after the running figure, his tiny frame retreating into the distance and suddenly barked at Claire. "Go! Make sure he's all right." Claire shook her head, refusing to leave Peter at a time like this. But just as he had done back in Odessa when he had saved her, he shouted, his tone brooking no disobedience. "Go! Take care of him, you can't help me here." Without giving her another glance, he ran straight at Sylar.

She was distraught, but understood why he wanted her to go after the boy. Peter trusted her to do the right thing now and she wouldn't disappoint him.

Claire quickly sprung up from her crouching position, sprinting as fast as she could after Micah, reaching the corner of the alley in record time. Breathless, she dared to glance back at the fight behind her, hoping against hope that Peter would come out of this alive.

What she saw made her heart stop with terror. She wished she hadn't been so curious. Peter was still running down the alley, but the woman – Niki – reached Sylar first. Claire saw her grab Sylar by the shoulders and attempted to rip him bodily apart, but suddenly, Sylar's body began exuding heat waves, before coalescing into flames. His fire ripped through her body in a second and it looked even from a distance like she'd been struck by lightning. Niki gasped in pain, neutralised long enough for Sylar to begin slicing the top of her head. Claire put her hand to her mouth, stopping her silent scream. Sylar hadn't even needed to touch Niki to dismember her.

But before he could finish the job, Peter rushed in. To Claire, he appeared to brush Sylar aside without making any physical contact, pushing Sylar up and out over the other side of the alley, which crushed his body against a dumpster. The man rushed to Niki's side, who was now panting in pain, her skin blistering from the heat.

Claire couldn't continue to look, but she so badly wanted to stay with Peter. Her place was beside him. How could she abandon him in a time like this? But he had asked her to do this and she couldn't fail him. The desire to be in two places at the same time was so strong she felt bodily torn in two.

Somehow, she forced herself to run forward again and look for Micah. She spied him looking calmly at a beat up looking convertible. His hand was placed on the hood, the engine already running. Suddenly there was a swooshing sound and Nathan landed heavily next to them. "You guys all right?" He asked, looking around frantically. "Where's Peter?"

Claire gestured wordlessly back at the alley. Horror and understanding flashed across Nathan's face and he turned abruptly back to them. "You guys stay here, I'll go."

Surprising even herself, Claire grabbed his arm and stopped him. Acting purely on instinct, she pushed Micah towards Nathan. "No, I'll go."

She knew what she had to do. Without waiting for his consent, she jumped into the convertible, driving it at full speed back into the alley. It was a tight squeeze with discarded debris and junk lining the sides, but luckily she was practiced enough to navigate herself through. She seemed to have been born to cause havoc in a stick shift.

Peter and Sylar were facing off in the alley. Sylar appeared to be radiating heat and flame but Peter wasn't flinching. He launched a dumpster at Peter but Peter just batted it away like he was squatting away a bug. The dumpster landed halfway between them and collapsed, compressed in on itself.

Claire shifted to fifth gear, gunning straight for Sylar. Unfortunately Peter was now standing in her way. She prayed that he would somehow realise what she was doing and back away in time.

She was almost there, surely he could hear the engine, hear the screeching of the tires just behind him? She would hit him in another few seconds. Claire was about to slam on the brakes, but before she could Nathan swooped in and half-flew, half-pushed Peter away from the onrushing vehicle. A split second later Claire slammed into Sylar, pinning him against the wall. She saw him sandwiched between the heap of metal that was now the convertible and the wall, dislodged bricks tumbling on top of his inert body. But when the dust cleared from the wreckage, his body was nowhere to be seen.

That was the last thing Claire saw before she lost consciousness.

_Author's Notes: I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all the feedback I've gotten for this story so far. It's definitely feeding into my energy for this fic - I don't usually update this quickly! _


	14. Chapter Eleven: Part II

**Chapter Eleven**

"**The Last Three"**

**(Part II)**

She seemed to blink back a moment later. Her eyes fluttered open. Someone had dragged her body out of the wreckage, the same someone who was now holding her in his arms.

She gasped, coughing up the pool of blood lodged in her throat. The shock of the crash had made her, funnily enough, quite dizzy and for a moment she was completely disoriented. But then Peter's cool hands were on her forehead, his voice composed as he patiently explained to his brother that an ambulance wasn't going to be necessary.

She took a few seconds to clear the fog from her mind before Claire went about fixing herself up. Her neck was predictably broken but it was quite easy to pop it back into place. Same with her right arm and both her legs, which had been crushed under the steering wheel. She snapped everything back in place, painfully aware of the astonished glances she was getting from everyone besides Peter.

She calmly allowed him to help her up. "All done." She gave them a cheeky smile.

Nathan seemed to be looking at her for the first time. "So _that's _why he's so crazy about you."

Claire frowned, not understanding Nathan, but didn't have time to dwell on it. The man who had fought with them demanded angrily. "Who are you people and what the _hell _is going on here?"

They all went back at Claude's apartment, Nathan included. He had been reluctant to call even his own security team, fearing the need to explain the battered appearance of his companions. For some reason, the fact that he had been able to escape relatively scratch free seemed to irritate him all the more.

A hush fell on them after Peter closed the door, Nathan remaining outside to talk to his aide.

"So …" Peter was at a loss for words. Claire could understand that given what had just happened to them. They had all come too close to death for comfort.

The woman – Niki – was forced to sit down, her hand pressed against her side. Blood seemed to have stopped pouring out from the wound on the top of her head where Sylar had started to slice her open, but she was still bleeding from being knocked around. In addition to that, her entire right arm was blistering and looked badly burned.

Peter bent down to inspect her. She flinched angrily at first, but then the man put a restraining hand on her shoulder. "It's all right."

Peter grinned up at her sheepishly. "Yeah, it's all right. I'm a nurse." The way he said that made Claire want to giggle. She imagined the thousands of male nurse jokes that Peter would have endured and sensed that he had handled them all with ease and aplomb.

Claire filled the stilted silence by introducing herself. She figured they all had to start somewhere. "Hi, I'm Claire." She bit her lip, advancing towards the man, who was now holding Micah possessively. "Um … nice to meet you."

"I'm Micah." The curly haired boy smiled angelically. "This is my dad, DL."

"I think it's still dad to you, Mister." Suddenly the man looked a lot less foreboding and a lot friendlier. Claire decided she liked the look of him. "Nice to meet you, Claire." He paused awkwardly, turning to Niki who was being tended to by Peter. "This is my wife –"

"Niki." The woman butted in, giving DL a warning glance. Peter, having seen the look as well, shot Claire a questioning look of his own. It was clear to both of them that Niki and DL were hiding something.

Peter seemed satisfied that Niki was okay. "I think it's only a surface wound." He indicated the long cut along her forehead. "It should heal in a few days. You should run the burns under cold water in the bathroom." The way he said that reminded Claire that Peter may not be around in a few days. She refused to contemplate the possibility even further. "I'm Peter Petrelli. Nathan's brother."

Niki and DL both nodded, smiling tightly. It was only natural that people who had attempted to blackmail Peter's brother a few hours before would find being in their presence a little awkward now.

Nathan soon returned to the apartment looking pensive. Assessing the startled and slightly guilty glances shot his way, he strode straight up to Niki, declaring loudly. "Look, I don't care that you tried to blackmail me. Some guy tried to kill all of us today and I'm not taking that lying down. So you can stay here or run or you can help me. I don't care. I don't have time to come after you now, I just want to find this son of a bitch and take him down hard."

Claire saw Peter rolling his eyes and sensed his frustration. Although Nathan was currently running for Congress (or was that the Senate?), he really wasn't a people person. Peter seemed to have inherited all the people skills in the Petrelli family. "That's not really all that helpful, Nathan."

"What do you know, I almost got killed today."

"Hey, I think that guy was gunning for everyone, buddy." DL stepped forward, the smile no longer on his face.

It was clear even to Claire that out of all of them, Nathan and DL were the ones most likely to incite a confrontation, which wasn't going to help matters for anyone. They were all more than a little uptight knowing that Sylar was still out there, potentially planning another opportunity to ambush them. Their tempers were likely to be frayed and their emotional control stretched too thin.

"Okay, that's not helping either." It made sense that Peter had effectively nominated himself as the peacekeeper in their surprising little group. "We should stay here for the night, get a little rest." He paused. "We need to get some rest and figure about what we're going to do next."

"What we need to do is get the hell out of dodge right now." DL declared but stopped short at Niki, who was still gasping quietly. "Baby, are you all right?"

"Fine." She gritted, annoyance flickering into fatigue. "But I think I need to rest up a little. Get my strength back … you know?"

Yet again, Claire got the feeling she was missing half the conversation. "Yeah … okay." DL turned to Peter and Claire. "Is it cool if Niki takes the bed?" Peter nodded and DL helped Niki struggle into the bedroom, Micah tagging along behind them.

"I need to get back home." Nathan muttered almost to himself. "I need to know Heidi and the boys are all right." The brothers' eyes met and silent understanding seemed to flow between them. Peter nodded and watched as Nathan quickly left, not bothering to say goodbye.

And suddenly it was just the two of them again. "I saw you back there." Claire said abruptly into the silence, staring hard at Peter. "It looked like you could do stuff – without even touching them. I saw Sylar throw an entire dumpster at you and you batted it away like you were – I don't know – squatting away a fly or something."

She saw Peter swallow hard, his eyes shifting uncomfortably. "Yeah. I think so. I think I … when he threw it I me I wasn't even thinking." Claire looked on sympathetically as he ran a tired hand over his eyes. "All I wanted to do was to stop it. And then it – stopped. I don't remember much else."

Claire had a million other questions to ask, but a call from Peter's cell interrupted her. He held up a hand, giving her a curious, lopsided grin. "Yes?" The grin quickly slipped from his face, replaced with shock, disbelief, then crushing despair. He shook his head, muttering almost incoherently. "No, that can't be right. That can't be right." His voice shook, his voice rising in violent denial. "No, no, no, no. That's not right, there must be some mistake."

He suddenly dropped the phone. It clanged as it crashed to the floor and Claire was forced to watch, transfixed, as Peter backed against the wall and slid down to the floor, hugging himself in anguish.

She had to find out what had happened, so she gingerly picked up the phone. It was Ando on the other end. In the background, she heard a succession of angry sobs descending into howls of grief. "What happened?"

The Japanese man's voice was sad, sombre. "It's Simone." He paused, Claire somehow knowing the dreadful news before he had time to say it. "She's dead."

"How?" She had just been talking to Simone that morning. How could she now be dead?

Ando only had to say one word. "Sylar."

Remembering their last conversation at Isaac's that day, Claire glanced down at her watch. It was 10:38PM.

_Author's Notes: Thanks again for all the feedback. Now that the entire chapter is up, I just wanted to say a big thanks for the positive comments. I always find writing action scenes much harder than emotional "character" scenes, so I was a little nervous posting this chapter. But phew, it seemed to have been okay. I'm now working hard to finish the story. ;-) _


	15. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

"**Closer" **

Peter had no way of knowing how long Claire sat with him. Although he didn't acknowledge her, he could still feel her, content to sit quietly along with him into the night. He didn't know how long he thought about Simone, about the first time he saw her at her father's bedside, the first conversation they had – the first time he had realised he loved her.

The first time they kissed was the day the world opened up for him. And now she was gone and Peter was sitting in the dark, grieving her loss. But he was acutely aware that he wasn't sitting alone, going through this alone.

He heard himself sigh. Peter couldn't remember how long Claire sat patiently with him, but one glance out the window told him that it was now at least the time of night where even people in New York slept; only the street lamps were left to cast oppressive shadows in the penumbra between night and day.

He became keenly aware of her steady breathing. Assuming her to be asleep, he was mildly startled to find her shining eyes trained up at him. "Are you okay?" She asked softly.

No, he wasn't okay. But he couldn't say it aloud. The wound was too deep, too stark, too new. He was tired of this, running around the city hiding from everyone including himself. Hiding from what destiny had preordained for him, hiding from a homicidal madman intent on destroying them all. Tired of everything and anything, tired of being alive and feeling so damn much.

He heard her shift beside him. She stood up, coming to stand in front of him, blocking his view through the window. His darkness became hers and she was absorbed wholly into it. "Peter, you have to get some rest." He remained frozen, but heedless of that, she grabbed his hand and insistently tugged him to the couch. "You have to rest."

Peter was glad she hadn't said sleep. Rest was another almost impossible thing, but somehow it didn't seem as wrong as sleep. Sleep implied peace; rest only implied physical unconsciousness. How could he be at peace in a world where Simone had just been viciously murdered?

He allowed Claire to guide him to the couch, she the master to his puppet. Left to his own devices, Peter would have spent the night crouched against the wall, neither weeping nor moving. Feeling nothing, because that was the way he wanted it. For once in his life, he didn't want or need to _feel _anything.

She pushed him, shoved him, onto the couch until he found himself lying down, his legs dangling awkwardly over the edge. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he found this amusing. When had she grown up from the girl he had first rescued those weeks ago, learned to take care of emotionally and physically battered people like him, learned to do exactly what she was supposed to do in times like these?

Peter closed his eyes, feeling the tension leaving his body. He wasn't really going to sleep tonight, but if he was lucky he'd slip into timeless oblivion. He felt her sit down, then felt her breath on his chest, taking a few steadying breaths to calm herself. She snuggled closer to him, extending her body to its full length, cradling his as if his was the body that was going to break, as if _he _was the one made of glass and in need of protection.

His heart raced at the contact, enough to lift him out of the lethargy he'd been plunged into from Simone's death. Claire stretched her firm legs and despite her compact frame, she had to bend them for leverage to stay on the couch. Peter felt her locks brush softly against the exposed skin just between his neck and t-shirt, she was close enough for him to inhale her scent.

Still with eyes closed, he reached across her waist and drew her closer to him. In a more responsible frame of mind he would have called their physical closeness uncomfortable and dangerous, but right now he didn't care. He found himself sighing with relief feeling the softness of her skin against his; felt wonder as her tresses slipped through his fingers like golden silk.

And then he slipped into a broken dream, an unsafe oblivion that would carry him into the last day of his life.

* * *

The sun had risen by the time Peter regained consciousness, waking up from a fevered dream where Simone had been pleading for his help. She had pleaded and begged and screamed, but he hadn't heard her. He had been looking the other way, looking at any place but at her. A part of him knew what was going to happen but had been powerless to stop it. 

He took a long moment to clear the fog from his mind. Looking down at the sleeping form next to him, he was grateful that Claire was there. He had never felt so alone as he had last night. She alone had crossed that threshold of grief with him, she alone had extended her arm out to hold and protect him in his hours of need.

As if she could sense his intense thoughts, she stirred. Peter was still so locked into his grief that he refused to look away, instead fixing his dark eyes onto hers. It astounded him that even after all that had happened to her, she was able to gaze up at him with that wide-eyed look of innocence that only she seemed to possess. "Hey." He murmured softly, gently brushing the bangs from her face.

She smiled her golden smile, looking around sleepily. "Hey." She wiped her mouth self-consciously. "I hope I didn't drool on you."

"Not much." He whispered back, enjoying their closeness. Seeing her smile widen, a ghost of a smile tugged on the corners of his own mouth. It occurred to him that he should really pull away for a multitude of reasons, all of which included her youth, their situation, and the way she looked up to him.

It was inappropriate. But right now, Peter didn't care. He was fixated on her golden form, all light and air and youth and vitality. He was fixated by the crook of her neck, the small mole on the side of her face, the smoothness of the skin on the underside of her arms. Fixated by the cherry red lips she possessed.

She was looking up at him with a question in her extraordinary eyes, a question she had asked more than once but had never dared utter aloud. She leaned forward slowly, staring at his lips and they were so close now their noses were touching.

Peter pulled away. He couldn't take advantage of her like this. What was the matter with him? How could he even think about doing this when he was supposed to be protecting her? "Sorry, I can't. I can't." He gasped.

Frustration, anger and hurt collided on her features. "You could die today Peter." She whispered quietly, urgently. "You could die and I'd never know what it's like to be kissed by the boy I liked."

There was a discordant silence before her urgency broke his resolve, fuelling his passion anew. He knew it was all wrong and that he was doing it for all the wrong reasons – his grief over Simone, his grief over his destiny and the way things had to go, and the many times over the past week that they had been there when they had needed each other the most.

It was all wrong, but the moment that Peter lost control of himself, it all felt so _right. _He stared at her for a split second, then leaning down, kissed her.

It started off gently, tenderly, the way he imagined she deserved to be kissed by a boy she liked. Perhaps a real first kiss, something tender, sweet and capable of being remembered forever. But then she responded almost a little too eagerly and any remaining control he had over his own body was lost in a passionate chasm of nothingness.

He quickly flipped her over so her body was pinned hard underneath his, all the while attacking her mouth as if it was the last kiss he would ever have. He held her down, ran his hands down her arms, bringing them up over her head as his tongue sought hers. Somewhere at the back of the coherent part of his brain, he wasn't sure whether his fervour would alarm her; what was scarier was the fact that the rest of him didn't really care.

The fact that she was making half-moaning, half-mewing sounds only spurred him on. He reached down, running his hand over her thigh, traced its contours up and down, brushed lightly over her knees then back up again, until it rested delicately on the inside of her leg.

He stopped momentarily, eliciting a protest from the mewing she-tiger underneath him. She writhed under him, the friction causing him to moan in pleasure. He could feel his own arousal pulsating against his skin and clothes, but Peter didn't want to hurt her, he really didn't.

She wrapped the leg that he had been caressing around the outside of his thigh, the ball of her foot rubbing against the back of his leg. With her hands, she nimbly grabbed the bottom of his shirt and began to tug it off him. He reached out to stop her. "Are you sure?" He asked a cautiously. She was still 17 years old, a girl. Should he really be doing this?

Claire looked up at him with her big blue eyes, her sparkling smile. He realised with a start that he was getting the first glance at the young woman Claire Bennet had become. A young woman, not a girl, was now pinned beneath him. "Yes."

Peter allowed her to yank his t-shirt off over his head, throwing it over the edge of the couch. The promise of his skin against hers was too strong to ignore now and a second later she had peeled her own shirt off. Writhing against him some more, he dove into the crook of her neck, planting kisses behind her ears whilst drawing delicate circles on her stomach with his hand.

Claire was getting more adventurous now with her hands. They became surer and firmer, running down his chest and down his thighs and on the small of his back and God, how could such a small person make him feel so much? His entire body ached with her touch, leaving a river of thrilling anticipation in their wake. Peter felt like he was going to explode with the sensations he was feeling at the moment and by God, if this was the way he was going to start the last day of his life, he wasn't going to be complaining.

They were both getting hot and sweaty, drenched in a passionate fervour. Their excitement was rising and pulsating, their bodies were almost in synch with the rise and fall of their passion. Insistent hands grasped blindly at the waistband of his jeans, finding the button, unzipping it awkwardly and God he knew he was so close to the most wonderful feeling in the world.

A crash brought them to an abrupt halt. Peter, still breathless from their encounter, pressed himself carefully off Claire's body and looked over the top of the couch.

Micah was standing stock still, staring at them with wide, slightly sleep-filled eyes. There was no way to tell how long he'd been standing there.

To say that the sight of a boy gawking at him in mid-arousal was a mood killer would have been the understatement of the century. Caught so blatantly with his figurative hand in the figurative cookie jar, he half-leaped, half-rolled off Claire, with the curious result that he ended up flipping himself off the couch only to land hard on his back. "Ow."

Claire, the more graceful of the two, rolled off in search of her top. Peter, now completely drained of all energy and more than a little embarrassed, said with false brightness. "Hiya Micah." He paused to catch his breath. "Say buddy, how long were you standing there?"

Even from his position on the floor, he felt the boy's smirk. "Long enough."

"I see." Peter had no idea what was appropriate in this situation. Should he apologise to Niki and DL for exposing their son to such a scene? Completely ignore the situation altogether? What was the etiquette to be observed in situations like these? He wearily pushed himself off the floor. Peter straightened, unfortunately spying his shirt on the table next to Micah, who had planted himself on one of the chairs, sipping a cup of water.

"Relax." Micah rolled his eyes. The kid was really too precocious for Peter's liking. "It's not anything I haven't seen before."

"I see."

"I'm kinda hungry. Can we go and get some breakfast?"

Peter walked over and retrieved his shirt. "Sure buddy."

"Cool. Let me ask mom and dad what they want." He rushed out of the room. Peter stared after the energetic boy incredulously, embarrassment more than tingeing his features.

Far from being unsure, Claire gave a small chuckle. She blushed and averted his probing gaze. She stuttered. "Ah …"

"Maybe we should get breakfast." Peter smiled tightly, awkwardly avoiding her glance. He couldn't believe he had almost allowed that to happen. He felt sick, a crawling, sinking feeling descending on his already queasy stomach. Claire was only 17 for God's sakes, a minor. Worse than that, she clearly looked up to him, had even teased him about being her hero and he had nearly taken advantage of that – he had almost –

He was certain that if Micah hadn't interrupted them, it would have happened. He would have taken advantage of her, their situation, his emotional weakness after learning of Simone's death. He had felt so hollow and empty, he had grabbed onto the only warm, wonderful thing that he had left – Claire. And he had nearly destroyed that, all because he had felt so close to her, so safe, so comfortable. But she was only 17 years old.

Peter had never felt so disgusted with himself in his life.

_Author's Notes: I wasn't sure whether this chapter was still PG-13. I tried to keep things ... general, but I'm still not sure. If you guys think its a bit more mature than that, let me know and I'll change it. Thanks for all your kind feedbac for the story so far! _


	16. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

"**The Coming Storm"**

Niki appeared stronger when Peter and Claire returned with breakfast. In fact, she had recovered enough from her run in with Sylar to help them unload the food onto the table.

Watching Micah munch hungrily on his first piece of toast, Peter got straight to the point. "What can you guys do?" He inquired calmly.

Niki and DL immediately became quiet, defensive. "What do you mean?"

Peter sighed, putting his half-eaten bagel down. "That guy who attacked us? His name's Sylar. He goes around trying to kill people with abilities. Hunts them … hunts _us_." He looked at them carefully through his bangs which had fallen over his piercing eyes.

DL looked first at Peter then Claire, enunciating his words slowly. "What do you mean, people with abilities?"

"People who can do things." Peter said crisply. "Have secial … powers."

"Are you one of them?" DL asked shrewdly, shooting his wife a glance.

Peter nodded, looking straight into the other man's eyes. Maybe Claire was just being paranoid after what had happened between them that morning, but it seemed like he was doing everything in his power to ignore her existence. Their short walk to the diner around the corner had consisted only of the words, "What do you want?" and "Can you hold this for me?" Anything more personal like how he felt after kissing and doing other stuff with her he seemed incapable of expressing.

He was acting exactly how Zach had acted after his memories had been erased – as if their entire friendship had never even existed. Had kissing her been so bad? Was he so disgusted with himself that he couldn't even bring himself to look at her?

It was potentially the last day of his life, so she would wait until she confronted him about it. It gave her another reason why she wanted him to live, if only to have a monumental throw down with him.

Peter answered DL. "I am." Claire had never seen Peter exude this much confidence. "I can do things – absorb other people's abilities. Claire can –" Here he paused awkwardly, no doubt realising that he would have to talk about her without actually acknowledging her presence. He achieved it effortlessly to Claire's chagrin. "She can heal from almost anything, like you saw her doing before." Seeing the sceptical look in Niki and DL's eyes, he continued, telling them about Isaac, Hiro and Matt. Curiously, Peter chose to leave Nathan's ability to fly out. Claire didn't know whether Peter knew that Micah had most likely witnessed Nathan swoop in on them just before she had driven the car into the wall.

"The point is." Peter sipped his coffee. "Sylar only goes after people with abilities. What can you do?" He was staring straight at Niki, but to his surprise it was DL who answered.

"I can go through things." He stated calmly, as if he was reciting a grocery list.

"What … kind of things?"

"_All _sorts of things. Walls, glass, metal. Anything."

"That explains what I saw." Claire interrupted. "I thought I saw you dive through Sylar and … stick him into the wall."

DL nodded. "I've never done it to anyone else before. Wasn't sure I could."

"And what about you Niki?" Peter looked at the woman shrewdly, aware that she was hiding something.

"I'm strong." She replied, her eyes blazing with indefinable rage. It was strange how one minute she could be warm and gentle, the next an object of untameable fury. "Very strong." She placed her arm protectively around her son. "So what's the deal? How do we kill this guy?"

DL protested. "We need to run, get away from here. Have you forgotten about Micah?"

"I haven't forgotten about my son." Niki grated, her eyes spitting sparks. "I want to make sure this guy never gets a chance to even be in the same zip code as Micah, let alone come after him. If I have to take him down to do it, then I'll take him down."

It was lucky that Nathan chose to let himself in at that moment, otherwise Claire would have seen exactly how a super strong and very angry woman fought with her able to go through things husband. He took one look around the tense group. "Good, you're all still alive."

"Nice to see you too Nathan." Peter quipped back.

Nathan tossed his brother a bag of clothing, doing the same to a surprised Claire. "Don't ever say I'm not nice to you." She glanced at Peter, who was staring at the navy blue jacket and khaki coloured shirt in his hands. She recognised them from one of the pictures at Isaac's yesterday. She looked into her own bag, finding a pair of worn jeans and a red and white striped t-shirt that thankfully looked small enough to fit her.

Peter held the jacket and t-shirt against him tightly, a strained expression on his features. Nathan looked at him in confusion. "What? What's the matter?" Peter couldn't answer him and Claire got the feeling that even now, on this day of days, he was having trouble accepting his supposed fate.

So he should. Nothing was written in stone. It was not Peter's day to die, not yet.

"It's what he's wearing in his dream." Claire answered quietly, not daring to look at Peter. "It's what he's wearing when he thinks he'll explode."

Nathan looked from Claire to Peter, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Come on, not _that _again. I go home, ransack your old room which, by the way, I did right after making sure my family was _still alive_. Get you a clean change of clothes because you stink to high heaven. Even asked Heidi to find some old stuff for your cheerleader and what? You're going to explode because you're now wearing the right outfit? Grow up Peter. It's time to stop all this nonsense!"

Peter, who had remained resolutely silent during his brother's tirade, could no longer restrain himself. If looks could kill, Nathan would have been six feet under in two seconds flat. "You don't _know_!" He shouted furiously, appearing to Claire to have lost whatever emotional control he had over himself. "You don't know anything, all right? I'm going to die today and all you can do is tell me what a disappointment I am? I'm through convincing you. I'm through with you Nathan! Do you hear me? I'm though!" He wheeled on them and in one swift, brutal motion, he lifted and smashed the chair that he had been sitting on into the opposing wall, shattering it into pieces.

His anger was so fierce, so wild, so violent, that even Claire backed away from him. It may have been a trick of the light, but to her it looked like his eyes had suddenly caught fire, and his normally dark orbs were lit by a deep red glow.

Suddenly, the cups of coffee that had been on the table began to shake. Some tipped over but others smashed into the other wall just as the chair had done. The couch on the other side of the room pounded against the ceiling, landing back on the floor with a loud crash. The table that they had just been sitting at was torn asunder in mid-air. Niki threw herself over Micah to protect him from the falling debris and DL did the same with Niki.

But it didn't stop. The windows smashed inward, as if the entire building was taking a shuddering breath. The blinds flew off their hinges, taken clean through the window and presumably out onto the street below. The walls themselves started to shake, plaster and paint quickly becoming dislodged to pile onto the floor in clouds of dust. It felt like they were in the middle of an earthquake.

They all looked frantically at Peter who remained unmoving, only his eyes betraying any sign that he was the one doing this. Nathan rushed to his brother, holding out a restraining hand. "Stop it Peter!" He shouted above the whoosh of rushing debris swirling around them. "Stop it, you're going to hurt someone!"

Peter rounded on Nathan, his breathing now coming in loud gasps. He looked scared out of his mind and not entirely in control of what he was doing. His hands grabbed at his temples in pain, but before Nathan could get to him, he was sent reeling into the ceiling, landing with a heavy thud.

Peter looked on helplessly. Suddenly his eyes sought Claire's, saying the two magic words that propelled her into action. "Help me."

She was sprinting towards him even as he said those words. She had no clear idea what she was going to do, but all she knew was that she was probably the only one who could go near Peter at this point. He could hurt her, but it wouldn't stop her. She was indestructible.

Claire tackled Peter at full speed, sending them hurtling towards the one window that he had yet to smash. Her momentum was just enough to send them crashing through onto the fire escape outside, shards of glass becoming deeply embedded in both of them.

There was a loud, stunned silence in the aftermath. Peter, who had landed heavily on Claire, looked down at her in with a mixture of wonder, fear and loathing, his eyes painfully aware of the havoc he had just wreaked. "I'm sorry." He whispered, a fragile brokenness breaking over his face. "I'm so sorry."

Through the haze of blood that was streaming onto her face, she managed to bring one tired arm out and bring his face against hers. She remained still while Peter began to sob, his salty tears creating rivers of grief down his face that flowed freely onto hers. Claire had never seen anyone so broken, so bent, in her life.

* * *

Peter remained huddled in the corner, refusing to talk or engage with anyone. Not that Niki or DL were all that keen to approach the man that almost killed them by merely directing his mind to it, but Claire and Nathan, standing together a few feet away, looked on with mutual concern. 

It was strange that Nathan no longer intimidated Claire. Seeing his clear anxiety for Peter had made her shed whatever trepidations she had about Nathan's ulterior motives. Sure he seemed like he was a Class A jerk most of the time, but someone who showed such a deep and abiding concern for his younger brother had to be a good person at heart. "What the hell just happened to him?"

Only Nathan could manage to whisper gently and fume at the same time. Claire chose to believe that he wasn't actually angry at her, just displacing his anxiety to the nearest available person. "I don't know. He was showing other powers before. Like –" She struggled to put everything into words. Peter was really much better at this than she was. "He was floating, just before we left for Isaac's yesterday. He thought he drew the future. And … I guess yesterday with Sylar … I think it made him access some more of the stuff that he'd absorbed before. Maybe … I mean, he's been near Sylar before. Maybe he absorbed all the stuff that Sylar could do when he saved me."

Claire then haltingly repeated everything Mohinder had explained about the vaccine and its possible effects, at least the bits that she had understood. Needless to say, there was a lot about that conversation that she hadn't comprehended. She finished up by quietly explaining about Simone, cautiously monitoring Peter in case he could hear them.

"Okay." Nathan sighed, placing a hand on his temples. He closed his eyes, deep in thought. Claire took the chance to furtively check on Peter, who now had his head in his hands. "I'll take care of this." Claire must have looked like she was about to protest because he laid a gentle arm on her. "Don't worry, I can play nice. Peter's sensitive – almost too touchy feely for my liking. He's always been this way, always took things hard. But he can't stay like this. This Sylar guy's going to come after all of us again and we need to be ready for him when he does."

"You think Peter's the only one who can take him on, don't you?" Claire whispered accusingly. "You're going to let him risk his life like that after what just happened?"

"Yes." Nathan replied grimly. "Peter's sensitive, but he isn't made of glass. He's a strong guy." Claire looked into the older man's eyes. She had known Peter for only a week and trusted that Nathan knew his brother a lot better than she did. She also trusted that Nathan would risk his own life to save his brother's, such was his affection for him. "Just don't ever tell him I said that." He cracked.

The comment actually made Claire crack a smile. Even at a time like this, Nathan was able to be his roguish self. Giving her a sincere smile, he quickly turned and approached Peter, bending down to speak softly to him.

Peter's cell rang and Claire retrieved it from the floor. "Yes?"

It was Mohinder. "Claire? Where's Peter?"

She quickly told him what had happened to them with Sylar yesterday up to Peter's telekinetic breakdown this morning. "We also met some other people –" She gave Niki, DL and Micah a glance. "Who can also do stuff. They may be able to help."

For once, Mohinder didn't seem to be as fascinated with the discovery of new people with abilities. Perhaps seeing a friend murdered by a homicidal killer tended to kill the mood a bit. "We need to talk."

He swiftly told her the events of last night that had led to Simone's death. All of them – Mohinder, Isaac, Hiro and Ando – were now on the run. Sylar had attacked Isaac and Simone just outside Isaac's apartment, catching them completely off guard after they were returning from a walk around the block. Simone had pushed Isaac down onto the ground just in time. Angry, Sylar had struck her hard against a nearby building, crushing her neck and spine. She was killed instantly.

Mohinder's voice broke and Claire held her breath in sympathy. She didn't want to imagine the gruesome scene. Although she had watched hundreds of teen horror flicks with dismembered bodies and free flowing blood and gore, something like that happening to someone she knew was far too confronting and real.

Luckily for Isaac, Hiro, Ando and Mohinder had been on the way to his apartment to deliver some Japanese takeout – at Hiro's insistence – and had stumbled onto the encounter. With Hiro's teleporting ability, they were able to escape just in time, managing to get into contact with Audrey and Matt who had organised for them to stay at a FBI safe house for the night. They were now there conferring with the authorities on the best way to catch Sylar but weren't having much luck.

Claire promised to relay everything to Peter and Nathan. With a sigh of relief, she saw that Nathan had managed to coax Peter out of his near catatonia. DL, who was watching the exchange closely, approached Claire with a suggestion. She felt odd being talked to in this manner. "Niki and I have talked this over." He declared. "We're going to help. Only because I can't afford to have this guy on the loose with my son around."

"Okay." Claire stuttered, looking at Nathan expectantly. When he didn't react to help her out, she stumbled on. "Okay. We should … find out where the others are. Meet them somewhere that's _not _in the safe house, in case Sylar's on our tail. We should … I don't know … do that. Then work out … where to go from there. Does that sound like a plan?"

"Sounds like a plan." Niki said grimly, extending her hand. "By the way, I'm not Niki at the moment. The name's Jessica."

Claire stared at the blonde in confusion. She had no idea what that meant at all.


	17. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

"**The Waiting Game"**

It was an unusually hot day in New York, so much so that people were dressed in t-shirts and some even in shorts, the sun beating down on them pleasantly as they went about their daily lives, oblivious to the possibility that the world could end in a matter of hours.

For one particular group, there was nothing enjoyable about the day. Peter had only just recovered enough to venture outside the apartment, but he still refused to meet anyone's gaze. The horror of what he had done – of what he had been capable of – taunted him relentlessly like a broken record in his mind, so much so that he felt sure the others would shy away from any contact if he actually dared approach them. Which he didn't, so that solved that little issue.

The fear that now gnawed at him was that he was more like Sylar than anyone had imagined, crazed and unable to control his newfound powers. He recalled what Claire's father had said about their similarities and how Claire had protested that they were nothing alike. But Peter could see now how untrue that was – they truly could have been two sides of the same coin.

Peter didn't even want to be considered the same currency as Sylar, let alone the same coin. The thought made his stomach churn and for a pinprick of a moment, he saw how the world could be saved if he was gone. If he exploded today and made sure he was far enough away from New York or any other inhabited area when it happened, no lives would be lost besides his own. And the world would be safer without another ticking human time bomb wreaking havoc whenever he lost his temper.

He contemplated the best way to ask Nathan to fly him out of the city. He wasn't afraid of his brother's fury (he imagined there would be a lot of it directed exclusively at him). He just needed a really good reason for Nathan to do this one thing for him. Of course, there was also the possibility that it would be beyond Nathan's capability, the same as it had been when Peter had slipped from Nathan's grasp after Peter's first jump from a high rise.

But before he could broach Nathan, Claire was beside him, her proximity demanding attention. All of them – Nathan, Niki, DL, Peter and Claire – were making their way to Central Park just north of 84th Street to meet the others. Apparently, the FBI safehouse was located on the Upper West Side, a fact that Nathan had found amusing. They had deposited Micah with a puzzled Heidi that morning before heading off to meet with Mohinder and the others.

Peter had scrupulously continued to ignore Claire all morning. He had no idea how he was going to apologise to her for the way he had acted – for everything – and it seemed too soon to mention the specific incidents in question. If he managed to survive the day, he knew he would have some serious apologising to do.

But Claire appeared to have other ideas. Walking beside him, she blocked his path, determination crackling from her frame. "You have to talk to me some time Peter."

He sighed, staring as the others walked further in front until they disappeared around the bend. The park around them was luscious, verdant and green, reminding Peter of everything he would miss about his life if it was indeed, the last day of his existence. "I know." He admitted, still not able to meet her penetrating gaze. "I just don't know how to …"

"You have nothing to apologise for." Claire jumped in, her eyes keen. "I don't understand why you think you have to."

Disbelief spread over Peter's features, making him splutter ungracefully. "How can you say that? I have everything to apologise for." Claire rolled her eyes, a very Nathan-like gesture that would have made him smile at any other time. "I … took advantage of you. I lost my temper and nearly killed everyone. " Peter muttered, his eyes downcast. "It shouldn't have happened. I was so messed up about Simone. And you … you were there."

Dread crept onto her features. "Are you saying you were only with me because I was there?"

"No! No, of course not." Peter was not explaining this very clearly at all. It seemed very important that she know how he felt about her. "Remember what I said before? We're too close. I'm supposed to protect you, not take advantage of you … like that. We're getting too close. Sometimes I don't think I can control – I don't know that I can control – when I'm around you."

"Oh my god." She huffed, crossing her arms in exasperation. She looked extraordinarily ticked off. "Is that it? You nearly took out Nathan's campaign headquarters this morning with your mental fireworks and you're still worried about _that_?Peter, I'm a big girl. I mean, I'm not physically very big, but come on. I'm 17, not seven. It's not like you're on the way to being – I don't even know the word – but those sick people who like little kids. I was supposed to go to college next year. I'm not a little girl!"

"It's not something that will go away." Peter said sadly, not having heard a single word Claire had said, which infuriated her even more.

"I don't want it to go away!" Claire seemed one step away from exploding into a tantrum and stomping her small feet on the ground. "I'm sick of people thinking I'm so young and innocent, just needing to be protected. I can't believe you still think that way about me! I've fallen off buildings. I've crashed cars into walls and broken every single bone in my body. I've been carved open and left on an autopsy table and hung out to dry. Don't tell me this is all your fault. Don't tell me you have to apologise for feeling the way you do!"

Okay, so he had been wrong. Far from being only one step away from losing her temper, she had already reached boiling point, her feelings erupting from her like lava on an already battered Peter.

He was completely taken aback by her outburst, but to his credit he managed to look abashed at her accusations. Scratching his head awkwardly, he finally had the courage to look at her. "Okay. I deserved that."

"Yeah, you did." Claire's hands flew to her hips. "And a lot more besides. But that's not the point." She declared furiously.

"It's not?" He was scared at what she was about to say.

"No!" She really did stamp her feet, as if to stress her point. "The point _is _–" She looked so angry that she was having trouble speaking – well, shouting. "The point is – you have to let me decide for myself. It's my life, I think I'm old enough to do that. After everything we've been through, don't you think I deserve that?" Suddenly all the anger, frustration and irritation evaporated, leaving a very tired, scared young woman in her place. "I know it's not the right time for this –" Peter opened his mouth to protest. "I don't want to make you feel bad. I just want you to let me be your friend. Let me be with you, don't … I don't know, pretend I don't exist or anything."

Peter now understood that she needed this as much as he did, needed their closeness, their friendship. He couldn't deny that he still harboured illicit and slightly indecent feelings for Claire, but their friendship should have been able to transcend that. He had saved her life and she had saved his. It wasn't about keeping score or repaying old debts any more – they were well past that point. What mattered now was Claire wanting to be with him at the end of all things. If he was lucky, the end of all things wouldn't be today.

He saw her face crumble, like she was a house of cards being destroyed by a gust of wind. Peter slowly walked towards her, not knowing exactly what the right words should be. He wanted her to know that whatever happened, he was first and foremost going to be her friend. He had willingly taken on the mantle of her protector, but now he offered himself up to her as her friend.

Claire rushed into his arms, unable to contain herself. He was glad to note that she wasn't crying and that he hadn't made her day any worse than it was already going to be.

As he held her in his arms, the sun shining brightly down through the canopy of trees around them, Peter realised that he didn't need to say anything momentous or make any grand declarations. All that mattered was that he was there with her and that today of all days, they had become true friends.

It was like a shaft of sunlight had broken out from behind the clouds that had descended on his life. The feeling warmed his entire being, imbuing his body with a profound sense of peace. Having Claire in his arms was a feeling like no other – it was like Peter was coming home where he belonged.

* * *

Whoever had chosen the location for the meeting had been right on the money. It was perfect for their purposes. Cool, shaded and amply secluded by the grove of large poplars that obscured them from prying eyes, it was easily one of the more private places that Central Park had to offer. 

Nathan stomped around the clearing as they waited, clearly disgruntled at having found himself in such a cloak and dagger situation such as this, on his election day of all days. He had been kept busy all morning answering haranguing phone calls from his aides, under the mask that he'd had a family emergency that had prevented him from being with his staffers. Niki and DL stood awkwardly a few paces beside him, DL looking around the clearing warily as if expecting attack at any time.

Peter and Claire waited patiently out on one side, Claire having parked herself on the ground to wait for the others, idly twirling blades of grass in her hands. Peter found himself staring at her intensely, thinking about what had happened between them that morning.

She looked up at him, irritation flickering across her face. "Stop it."

"But I'm not ignoring you anymore." Peter protested, giving her a lopsided grin. "You said I didn't have to."

He was lucky that she didn't have the power to eviscerate people just by looking at them, otherwise he'd be a dead man. Before she could retort, Hiro emerged from the shadows, followed in quick succession by Mohinder, Ando, Matt, Audrey and Isaac. The sight of the painter reminded Peter anew of his fresh grief, something that he was sure Isaac shared. He could almost feel it rolling off Isaac in waves of fury, guilt and pain. Peter's head began to throb, and it throbbed even louder as he began hearing the thoughts of those around him. Their voices – actual or otherwise – swirled around in his brain and quickly became enmeshed, a confusing babble of noise and sound that crescendoed to pierce his brain.

Their meeting was subdued. They were, with the exception of Nathan, Niki and DL, all acutely aware of their last meeting at Isaac's apartment and the realisation that they had willingly thrown themselves into something dangerous and potentially fatal. And now Simone was gone, the first casualty of their battle for New York and Peter Petrelli's safety.

"Okay, I'm going to cut to the chase. What the hell are we going to do to stop this guy?" Nathan declared brashly.

Matt frowned, looking around at the others. "I'm sorry, who're you?"

"He is flying man!" Hiro said in excitement, his enthusiasm even now making Claire them smile despite their dire situation. He unnecessarily emphasised his point by adding. "Whoosh!" Intriguingly, Hiro was now armed with the largest sword Peter had ever seen, wearing it strapped around his back. It looked like something out of a museum exhibit.

Mohinder and Audrey tittered, Mohinder coming forward to shake hands. "You may not remember me, but I tried warning you about Sylar once." Nathan squinted hard at the Indian man, then smiled in a particularly shark-like way.

"Yeah, you're that Suresh guy. Good job with the warning." He added smarmily.

Mohinder was enough of a gentleman to ignore Nathan. "So, you're capable of human flight? I mean, you can fly?"

Nathan cocked his head in acknowledgement. "Pretty freaky, huh?"

"No, not at all. My father made it his life's work to look for people like you." Mohinder broke out into a delighted smile. "I'd love to have a conversation with you some time about it."

"Sure champ. If we all don't die today."

Introductions to Niki (or was it Jessica, Peter didn't really understand the difference) and DL were quickly made before their discussion got under way. Try as he might, Peter had trouble focusing, constantly being harassed by the random rumble and flow of noise that floated through his mind. He was busily employing the techniques that Claude had taught him but that required concentration and worst of all, energy. Energy he really didn't have.

The only sure thing that Peter was aware of was that Isaac seemed to be even less involved in the conversation than he was. Obviously still in mired in his grief, he seemed withdrawn, almost catatonic. Peter understood that feeling.

The others were talking about how best to trap Sylar. "We need to draw him out into the open." Audrey was saying. "He operates solo, catching people when they least expect it. We need to draw him out of his comfort zone and catch him out."

"Easier said than done." Nathan huffed, his arm's crossed. "And here's a question – why haven't you feds caught up with this guy yet? A whole spate of murders across the country and you still need civilian help to catch him? I thought you guys specialised in this kind of stuff."

"We have twelve stand by teams waiting nearby for support." Audrey retorted aggressively. Peter privately thought it wasn't that smart of his brother to be provoking an angry woman armed and trained to kill. "We'll go in when we pinpoint his location. Look …" She hesitated, glancing over at Matt. "This guy's hard to catch. He's capable of … a lot of things I'm sure you know about that. Fire and manpower aren't going to do it, we need more. You guys are capable of … more."

"Basically, we need your help." Matt explained patiently, seemingly the calmer of the two. "It's time to lay it all out on the table. I can read minds. I know most of you have some sort of unique ability, abilities we can use to our advantage if we just put our heads together. I think it's safe to say that nobody wants this guy running around doing more damage and –"

"Stop." Claire jumped up. "I heard something." She crossed to the other side of the clearing, peering into the gloom. Two shadowy figures emerged, unwelcomed by most of the group to say the least.

"You." Nathan's eyes widened, shock giving way to fiery anger. Claire's father stared down at Nathan calmly, unperturbed by the look of absolute hatred that Nathan was giving him. The Haitian, accompanying Claire's father as always, stepped further into the clearing. "What the hell are you doing here?"

It couldn't have been a coincidence. Everything seemed to be slotting into place, coming together to weave the final chapters of a drawn out story, hopefully not ending with Peter exploding into tiny little pieces and decimating New York in the process.

Claire's father held his hands up in mock surrender. "Please Mr Petrelli, we're only here to help." Seeing the looks of disbelief on their faces, he explained, his tone steady and even. "Let me introduce myself. I'm Claire's father. This is my associate." He indicated the Haitian who nodded silently. "We work for a privately funded organisation that's interested in … acquiring intelligence on people like you. People with abilities." Peter glanced briefly at Claire trying to gauge her reaction at seeing her father, but her eyes remained stony. "We've been tracking Sylar for the past few weeks now. We know he's after some or even all of you. We want to help you apprehend him."

He was very convincing, sounding rational and worst of all trustworthy. Peter was glad to note that Claire didn't seem to be buying it and neither was his brother. "Like hell you are." Nathan snarled. Peter had never been as happy as at that moment seeing Nathan being his antagonistic self. Peter didn't have much energy left to do anything.

Fingering Claire's father, Nathan declared angrily. "This bastard tried to kidnap me in Vegas and do God knows what else."

"Please Mr Petrelli." Mr Bennet smiled, his expression inexplicably mild. "We weren't trying to kidnap you. We just needed to conduct a few preliminary tests to see how your physiology was being affected by the manifestation of your powers. The individuals I work for are interested in how the evolution of human physiology will progress in the future. I've already explained most of it to Mr Suresh here." He turned, indicating Mohinder. "Our research indicates that some manifestations of ability – power, if you like – can have a significant effect on your health. Just ask Mr Parkman."

Mr Bennet glanced sharply at Matt, who took a deep breath to calm himself. "What do you mean?"

"Your headaches?" Claire's father said knowingly. "They're getting worse, aren't they? As your power grows, so do they. We can help with that."

"That's bullshit." Matt spat angrily, startling everyone including Peter. Matt had struck them as being mild mannered and kind, and they hadn't seen him so heated before. "I didn't start getting the headaches until you guys took me."

"That's not true. You would have developed them in any case, but more rapidly. We monitored your body functions and moderated your headaches. They would be worse without our intervention, probably would have incapacitated you already."

Matt continued to shake his head and pointed an accusing finger at him. "No, you're wrong."

"This isn't helping." Ironically, it was Peter that had the sense to head off the brewing argument. "I think we can all agree that this guy is not to be trusted." Peter was finding it hard to concentrate through the increasing haze of pain. "You want to catch Sylar, right?"

Mr Bennet replied grimly. "Yes, we do. My backers want him caught." He glanced at Claire, who was studiously ignoring him. It was the first time his professional mask had cracked, showing the concerned father underneath.

Instead, Claire was peering strangely at Peter. It was uncanny, as if she could sense his pain. She strode over to him as the others continued to question Mr Bennet. "Are you okay?" She asked quietly.

Peter couldn't pretend to her that nothing was wrong. His head was pounding and his limbs felt like jelly. His hands were starting to shake uncontrollably and it was all he could do to keep himself upright. "Here, lean on me." She quickly ducked underneath him, bringing his arm around her shoulder for support.

"Thanks." He managed to croak as black spots appeared in front of his eyes. Worse still, his vision was starting to become blurred and spotty.

"Peter?" He heard Nathan ask with concern. "What's wrong with him?"

"It's his physiology." Mr Bennet replied rationally. "It's breaking down being exposed to so many of you at once. He needs to be isolated."

"The hell he does." Peter smiled at Nathan's stubbornness. "He just needs to sit down."

"No, he needs to be isolated from the rest of you."

Peter's concentration – or was that his hearing – was diminishing fast. The only thing he was aware of now was Claire struggling to hold him up, as she tried to continue supporting his full weight. Dimly, he felt another set of familiar hands grab hold of him and knew it must have been Nathan taking over from her.

The last thing he was conscious of before blacking out into nothingness was the brightness of the sun that beat down on him, blinding him from seeing anything else.

* * *

When he came to, Peter found himself on a bed in a darkened room, the blinds drawn to keep the sun out. The air was cool and mild, the silence permeating the room bliss to his overwrought senses. Claire hovered over him anxiously. "How're you feeling?" 

"What … happened?" Peter asked groggily. His body felt like mush, his insides like they'd reached boiling point. If he kept collapsing like this, he would be finding himself six feet under in no time at all. The human body surely couldn't have been designed to withstand all this pressure.

"You collapsed … again. We think it's because you were exposed to everyone at once. Your body couldn't handle it."

"The vaccine?" Claire shook her head, looking upset. "Mohinder forgot to bring more. With Simone and everything – it's still back at his apartment."

"Of course." Peter didn't expect Mohinder to risk his life and return to his apartment with the possibility that Sylar could be lying in wait for him or any of them. "What happened with the others?"

Claire quickly filled him in on all that had happened while he was unconscious. Together, the others had concluded that Peter was likely to be Sylar's target now that he had seen what Peter was capable of. Even Claire's father had agreed, saying that Sylar had never seen anyone whose power matched his own.

"He said that Sylar's ability was to see the way things worked." Claire frowned. "I didn't quite get what that meant, but apparently he can just look at things and see how they … work. Including people I guess." It was Mr Bennet's theory that Sylar's core power was what made him so dangerous. His ability to see the inner workings and instinctive understanding of how to use his stolen powers translated into someone who could most likely anticipate the movements, actions, and thoughts of others, making his entrapment difficult in the extreme.

"They're sure he's going to come after you." Claire rushed on, seeing the dread on Peter's face. "The others – they have this place surrounded. My dad thinks Sylar's going to show up for sure, his brain or whatever's fried from absorbing too many powers and he's not going to be thinking properly. He thinks that all he wants now to keep hunting people with powers and stuff. That he probably knows we're all after him, but he doesn't care because he thinks he's more powerful than all of us put together. He killed this guy – remember the guy that Matt was talking about? The one who leaked radiation? Peter, Sylar got his brain, he has the power to – to –" She looked at him with wide eyes, terror and fear suddenly pouring out from them. Her voice shook as she finally admitted. "Peter, I'm scared."

Peter swallowed hard. Sylar being able to emit radiation explained the burns on Niki after they had fought him yesterday. It also meant that no one, with the possible exception of Claire and himself, could approach Sylar and guarantee they were going to come out of it alive. He realised with a sinking feeling that the man had very nearly made himself invincible.

Looking up into her tired, red rimmed eyes and motioned for her to lay down. Wrapping his arms about her tightly, he made tiny shushing noises as she buried her face into his chest. "I know I can heal, it's just that … I'm still so scared. What's wrong with me? I'm the only one that's indestructible but I'm the only one who's scared of him."

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with you." He assured her gently. "We're all scared. Me included." If Claire could have seen inside him at this moment, she would have seen that he was scared quite literally out of his mind. If his legs were functioning properly Peter would have laid bets on himself to run away and not play the hero. Nothing was worse than this tension, this feeling of helplessness, waiting for the inevitable to happen.

"Are you?" She asked in wonder. Claire looked deeply at him. "You don't look it."

"That's because I still can't control my body properly." He joked, before asking suddenly. "Should you be here?" His throat still felt so sore and parched. "Should you be here if he's going to come after me?"

"I'm not leaving you Peter." Claire's voice was urgent, desperation lacing her tone. "If Sylar comes – I'm going to be here. With you."

Peter was going to remind her of her earlier promise to him, that when the time came she'd leave him, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He guessed he was being self-centred and terrified that way. He whispered softly. "Thank you."

At the back of his mind, the same dreadful thought repeated like a broken record. If things went wrong today, they could all be slaughtered by a madman.

Peter didn't know how long they lay there, holding each other.

Suddenly, a loud, roaring boom punctured the air. There was an explosion, followed by three or four smaller ones in quick succession, each one seeming to be closer than the last. Coming straight off the silence that had enveloped Peter and Claire just a few moments before, the sound was brutish and piercing, striking them with such ferocity it almost made Peter's heart jump out of his throat. The force of the blast was enough to make their room shake like they had been caught in the midst of an earth shattering quake.

Claire leaped off the bed and ran to the window, flinging the blinds open to see what had happened. Peter was momentarily blinded by the shafts of light that streamed through in the late afternoon sunshine. Even from his reclining position, he could see orange flames leaping out of the nearby building, quickly engulfing the entire floor. Screams and sirens began to punctuate the air as people began to run from the blasts down the street below.

Claire turned back to him, her form haloed by the burning light around her. Peter knew they were both thinking the same thing. Sylar was finally coming after them.


	18. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Fifteen**

"**The Exploding Man"**

"We can't stay here." Peter muttered, sensing the confusion and panic grow outside.

Claire shook her head, uncertain. "We're supposed to stay here. The others –"

"No." Suddenly Peter rose to his feet. Although everything about his body seemed unsteady, there was a kind of anxious fire that was abruptly blazing out, engulfing everything around him. She had never seen him look so decisive as he did at this moment. "No one else can take him on. He's going to destroy them if I don't go. Don't you see? I'm the only one with enough powers to go up against him." He stated all this matter-of-factly as if the decision wasn't going to put his life in danger. "I need to face Sylar and I can't do it with anyone around me."

Claire felt her heart had been ripped right out of her ribcage by his sudden insight. Until this instant, she realised that she hadn't known the meaning of fear. She had been scared out of her wits before thinking about Sylar coming after her but that had been nothing compared to this. It turned out that being scared for your own safety was a lot easier to handle than fearing for someone else's; fearing the possibility that they would not return to you alive. "You could die Peter." She choked, aghast even by the possibility.

Peter smiled his curiously crooked smile, throwing her own words back at her. "Dying's no big deal, right?"

They hastily ran down onto the street. Peter had tried futilely to convince Claire to stay put, but she would have none of that. Claire was already guilty of being an accomplice to Peter's head long dash toward possible death, it would have been too much to ask her to stay behind too.

They raced down the block and onto the next street, all the while crashing into masses of terrified people running in the other way. Fire and heat blazed all around them, flames lapping hungrily out of the second, third and fourth storey windows of a whole string of high rises. Unlike more localised fires, the blazes seemed to have taken on a life of their own, tearing down the street and the nearby surrounds at lightening speed and threatening to engulf people alive if they outstayed their welcome. And here Peter and Claire were, running directly into the heart of the inferno.

Even at less than a hundred percent, Peter soon outstripped Claire. Amidst the chaos, she was relieved to see that he had at least recovered full control of his body and that her presence didn't make him physically sick as a result of being exposed to her healing power.

Claire ran around the next corner after him but then stopped, stunned by the vista in front of her.

The sight of the Natural History Museum only two blocks away must have caught Peter's attention too the way it had arrested hers, because he had also stopped abruptly in the middle of the panic. They were at precisely the location where Peter had predicted himself that he would face off against Sylar. A chill ran down Claire's spine at the realisation and she knew Peter well enough to know that he was probably realising the same thing. His own death was staring him in the face, daring him to push forward to meet his destiny. Claire couldn't believe that a normal person wouldn't take the first available opportunity and run away from it as fast as he humanly possible.

But determination, not fear, was the only thing etched on his face. Claire knew from the raw, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that Peter was a one in a million; he wouldn't shirk the responsibility that he believed was his.

There was absolute pandemonium in front of them. In a bustling metropolis like New York, Claire guessed that they would've had their fair share of dramas or natural disasters. Police and fire fighters alike would not have been strangers to rescuing people from burning buildings or aiding the survivors who were fortunate enough to survive. What made the scene horrific and out of the ordinary was the number of charred remains lying openly in the street, obvious victims of the numerous blasts Claire and Peter had felt even from their hotel room. There were so many corpses and bodies lying around that the authorities hadn't yet mustered enough manpower to cover all of them. Rather, all able bodied personnel already at the sight were deployed to deal with the mass panic that Sylar's attack had induced.

Even while they were frozen by the scene, more police, fire fighters and paramedics were streaming into the area. Claire grabbed Peter's hand instinctively, not caring that she was squeezing them until her knuckles turned white. Not until this moment did Claire realise how truly young she had been just a few seconds ago. Before she had witnessed the awfulness in front of her, she had been a child. What she had seen now would stay with her for the rest of her life.

She felt Peter's hand return her squeeze and Claire heard the sharp intake of his breath, appalled by the damage that Sylar had wreaked. She looked up, expecting to see the blind panic that was coursing through her mirrored in his. But instead she saw only calm acceptance in his dark, piercing eyes. She couldn't understand it – why wasn't he more scared, more vulnerable at the sight before them?

Claire instinctively knew why. She had seen it often in the faces of jocks on the football team just before a big game. Their eyes often burned with intensity and they were able to shut out everything in the precious few minutes before game time. Peter was doing just that, emptying and detaching his mind of all emotion and thought, readying himself for the task at hand.

Still holding her hand, they ran past the commotion, with Peter sensing somehow where he was needed. Smoke and soot began raining down, swirling and billowing around them. It reminded Claire of a snow storm. It had never snowed in Texas of course, but Claire's father had taken their family to Vermont one year for a white Christmas. She had been mesmerised by the falling snowflakes that fell on her, enthralled by the tiny imperfect particles that made up each and every one, the next one as unique as the last.

Claire needed to sprint at full speed to keep up with Peter. They appeared to be tracing the explosions back to the initial source and Claire found it strange that no one else was following them. Perhaps the authorities were all too preoccupied by the fatalities and the smoking husks of buildings now disappearing behind them. Perhaps they just saw what they wanted to see and didn't want to face the possibility that a homicidal madman capable of shooting radiation out from every direction could cause this much destruction simply by directing his will toward it.

A hot gust of smoke rushed against her face and Claire instinctively used her free hand to cover her nose and mouth. Heedless of her discomfort, Peter ran through the black, sooty smoke, pulling Claire along with him.

What she saw on the other side made her, if possible, more horrified than she had been before.

The charred remains of what used to be a man lay in the middle of the street, tendrils of smoke still spiralling off the body. He was burned badly enough for there to be some doubt over his identity, but not enough to see that he had been tall, well built and strong. The building to the right was totally engulfed in flames, most likely already lost completely to the fire.

Balls of flame burst and sizzled about them. Claire looked into down the street and even from the distance she could see five, maybe six, tired outlines fighting against a lone silhouette, his face obscured by the waves of heat radiating off him. The stench of burnt flesh hung all around them, a smell that Claire was oddly familiar with given her own history of testing the limits of her gift. But even though she was used to it – to the extent that someone could be – when a gust of wind brought it fully to her senses, the stench her stomach queasy and it was all she could do to keep herself from hurling everything in her stomach.

She doubled over, the heat and stench stinging her eyes and nose and God, she just wanted to run away as fast as she possibly could from this hell on earth. She found herself staring at the charred remains on the ground sightlessly, slowly focussing on what had been his features.

She realised with a start that it was the Haitian, his corpse stiff and blackened almost beyond all recognition. She hadn't recognised him until she saw one of his eyes staring blankly straight at her – the other had been seared and burnt right through leaving only an empty socket. Claire blinked furiously to keep herself upright. She hadn't even known his real name and here he was, lying dead and blackened in front of her. No longer alive, and it was somehow tragic that she never even knew his name although she had effectively owed him everything, from starting her on this journey to her memories.

Sylar hurled another fireball towards the group of figures fighting for their lives. Claire was so close now she felt the full force of the blast, felt the hot rush of wind as the blaze completely engulfed another building one block down. The force of it made Claire lose her balance and if Peter hadn't helped her up she would have remained on the ground, devoid of the will to go on. Instead, he half-tugged her through the gathering conflagration, sprinting as one towards the fight.

Nathan flew and landed a few metres in front of them, ironically carrying Claire's father in his arms. Nathan's eyes met hers, his expression grim. "Sylar missed." He said, as if that was a good thing.

He gently set Claire's father on the ground. Blood was streaked over Nathan's previously pristine clothes and all the grime and soot from the nearby blaze gave his entire appearance a shadowy feel; he unfairly looked like an angel of death. It was clear that Nathan was now flying people to safety and she guessed that Hiro must have been trying to do the same with teleportation. She had no idea where Mohinder, Isaac or Ando were, but she hoped they were a safe distance from this hell.

Peter and Claire stared mutely at her father lying on the ground. Claire didn't realise until this moment how much she still loved him despite all he had done. She knelt down, relief sweeping over her when she saw the slight rise and fall of his chest. "Dad."

A second later Hiro teleported into view, struggling with Audrey in his arms, the sword on his back swinging madly behind him. She appeared to have been impaled by a crow bar and although she was still conscious and struggling, her eyes already had a distant, faraway look about them.

Matt swiftly ran to Audrey, choking and coughing against the fumes. He began tending her, pressing his hands against her stomach to staunch the wound, all the while his eyes wide with panic and shock. "Jesus."

Claire looked on with aghast eyes seeing Audrey gasping so heavily, blood seeping all over her shirt. Matt kept repeating calmly over and over that she was going to be okay, she was going to be fine; she just needed to stay conscious.

Was Audrey going to be fine? Was any of them?

Claire looked swiftly back to her father. Mimicking Matt, she pressed her hands against the gash on his chest. "Are you all right?"

He coughed through the pain. "I'm fine sweetie. You need to … you need to go."

Confusion halted her thoughts for a moment. Sweat from the furnace-like surroundings poured down her body, combining with the soot and ash that was raining down around them. "What do you mean?"

"Sylar. He's coming after all of you. People with abilities. We can't let him take any more." His expression was shed of deception for once. "You have to help. I wanted to protect you from all of this, but I – I can't. If you don't, there'll be no one to save you."

Claire wanted to tell him that she didn't need to be saved, but the sight of Peter racing straight toward Sylar stopped her short. "Peter!" She shouted after him but it didn't seem to slow him down.

She looked down at her father helplessly, the same feeling of desperately wanting to be in two places at once sweeping over her like déjà vu. She planted a quick kiss on her father's forehead. "Don't die." She said, eyes brimming with tears, before she raced after Peter.

Her father had been right about one thing – Claire had to help. She couldn't stand idly by anymore and rely on others to take care of her. She had to step up and face her fears just like everyone else.

She caught up to Peter, stopping to painfully gasp for breath, the scene in front of them one of destruction and desolation.

Nathan was flying above Niki and DL, who had been holding Sylar off to give Nathan and Hiro the chance to get Claire's father, Matt and Audrey to safety. But against the arsenal at the madman's disposal, they were not going to last long. Niki especially seemed to be taking the full brunt of Sylar's attack as he hurled anything and everything made of metal at her – phone booths, street lamps, things from the nearby buildings that weren't already on fire from his pyrotechnics.

Most missed, but some unfortunately connected. Claire was now close enough to notice the flailing of Niki's arms, her desperation to just keep standing for another second. It was as if as long as she kept standing and taking the blunt force of Sylar's powers it would guarantee that the others could be transported to safety.

Niki roughly jerked DL down onto the ground just before Sylar launched a phone booth directly at him, narrowly missing by inches. DL remained on the ground, still and unmoving. For a split second Claire thought he might have been dead, but then Nathan plunged in from mid-air and picked him up and flew away with him. As Nathan flew past Claire, she caught the absolute fear in the older man's eyes. She tried swallowing down her own fear but instead tasted bile in her throat.

Hiro suddenly materialised to the left of them, looking around him frantically. He appeared to be trying to reorient himself to his surroundings and was doing so while scared out of his mind. Peter ran full pelt at Sylar and Niki, gesturing frenetically to Hiro. "Go! Take her and leave. I can't do this with you guys around."

Hearing Peter's voice behind him, Sylar spun around. Claire was sure that if Peter hadn't caught his attention just at that moment, Niki would have died. She was on her knees, blood pouring like water from her head and her eyes were drooping into oblivion. Hiro managed to get to her just before she collapsed onto the ground, catching her roughly with both hands. Claire caught a glimpse of Niki just before Hiro teleported away and shuddered at the sight. Close to her entire body was covered with burns and blisters, no doubt a result from staying too long in Sylar's presence, as well as having the appearance of being drenched in a bath composed entirely of blood.

Peter closed the remaining distance to Sylar by launching himself off the ground, flying almost majestically to meet him. Even from her vantage point, Claire could see Sylar's steely eyes widen, hunger for Peter's ability naked in his eyes. She understood now what her dad had been saying earlier that day, about Peter being Sylar's ultimate target. If Sylar could somehow manage to get Peter's ability, he would be capable of anything and everything. He would no longer be hindered by the necessity to kill people in order to absorb their powers, he could just absorb them at will. Destroy anything and everything at will.

The very idea of it was able to turn her stomach inside out. Claire understood now why the others had felt it was necessary to risk their lives to try to stop Sylar. Because if Sylar managed to kill Peter, it could quite literally lead to the end of the world.

Claire had once asked Peter what she had to do with saving the world. If she hadn't been destined to help with this, she didn't know what destiny meant. At this moment though, she was forced to merely be a helpless bystander and watched as Peter landed in front of Sylar apparently without exerting much effort. She knew her time would come; until then she was compelled to remain in the background.

Peter and Sylar faced off in the middle of the unusually deserted street. Paper swirled haphazardly around them as a gust of wind blew by, leaving the stench of smoke and soot in its wake.

Claire half-expected them to have some sort of dialogue, the way that heroes and villains built up to the climax in movies but instead, Sylar snapped his eyes shut in concentration. A split second later, buildings on both sides of Peter started to shake and crumble, bricks, mortar, glass and other debris from inside flowing inward at lightening speed straight for Peter.

Claire's breath caught in her throat. But Peter, ice calm, merely smiled as he held out his hands, halting everything in its tracks. Everything that had been flying towards him now hung limply as if devoid suddenly of the inertia it needed to forge ahead. Peter had exerted just the right amount of force to stop everything from flying towards him; exerted the right amount of force for control.

How could he have known how to do that? How could he have known what he had absorbed and what he was able to recall? And even if he had figured that out in the split second that it took for Sylar to launch those objects at him, how could he possibly have known how to manifest those powers so quickly? Was he even at this point mimicking Sylar's own innate ability to understand the inner workings of all things? And if that was the case, would Peter also be susceptible to Sylar's insanity?

Peter held everything in limbo for an instant, then suddenly released his hands, launching all the debris back towards Sylar. Sylar sneered, warily batting the fragments of rubble away. Peter stood calmly and surveyed Sylar, as if assessing what he could and couldn't do.

Claire realised then that they were only testing each other. The true battle hadn't even begun and the devastation around them bore mute testimony that a drawn out war between them would benefit no one but could result in the ending of the world as she knew it.

Claire stared stunned at the dramatic change in Peter. Could this have been the same man that had taken her in last week? The same man that had selflessly and recklessly gone to Odessa to rescue a nameless cheerleader, the same man who had thrown himself off a building for her with no knowledge that he would survive the fall? The same man who had looked after her, the kind, considerate, caring individual who had taken her in and had become her protector and friend? Was this the same man who now stood so distant and remote, not appearing to care about anything in this world but destroying his enemy?

Her worst fear was not that Sylar would destroy the world. Her worst fear, she realised with a wrench, was that she could lose Peter, a man that she had come to know, respect and perhaps, love, to the power that could destroy Sylar but that could also ultimately destroy him.

This was where she was needed. Saving the cheerleader hadn't been about saving the world, not directly. Claire was not destined to be the hero to anyone but Peter. By saving her all those weeks ago, Peter would be saving himself.

Suddenly she recalled what Hiro had so patiently explained to her back at their first meeting at Isaac's. 'Save the cheerleader, save the world' was an if-then statement. By saving her, the world would be saved. There were no ifs, buts or maybes about it.

She wanted to shout, do something to let Peter know about her epiphany before it was too late; before he got too swept up into the maelstrom of power that was so clearly whirling inside him. But before she could do so, Sylar threw a large orb of flame directly at Peter and disappeared in a blink of an eye. Peter ducked just in time before it exploded with the full force of a warhead.

Unperturbed by the large explosion that had just missed him by a hair's breath, Peter looked up and quickly pinpointed Sylar on top of a nearby fifty storey building.

Smiling fiendishly, he flew up after him.

Claire had been so intent on the fight that she only realised she was too close when she felt a gust of hot wind crashing straight to her. She threw herself to the ground but it was a split second too late; the blast consumed almost her entire upper body, momentarily burning all the skin from her bones.

For a second, Claire was too shocked to even comprehend what had just happened. She had put herself through the physical wringer before, but being almost completely eviscerated from the waist up was something else entirely. The sight of her own hands mangled, stripped of nearly all its skin and tissue leaving curiously pristine white bone underneath would have been enough to make her sick at any other time, but not now. All she could think now was that the blast had burned everything off her, including her golden hair, her sun-drenched skin and of course, her shirt.

It scared her – because she had hardly felt a thing. When she had jumped off buildings and stuck her hand in the garbage compactor, there had been a shock – as tiny as it was – to her system, as proof that something had happened to her. But this – this was different. It was like she was invincible – it was like she was less than human.

She lost sight of Peter and Sylar and only God knew whether they were at this instant destroying themselves or the world. Claire looked down at herself, intrigued by how fast everything seemed to grow back. By the time Nathan landed in front of her, she had enough of herself back to become embarrassed by her state of undress.

Even in the midst of apocalypse, social strictures ruled. Nathan wryly averted his gaze, clearing his throat uncomfortably. "You seem to have lost something." He noted dryly.

Claire's throat felt sore, like raw parchment, no doubt from the being burnt to a crisp. "Yeah, I got … caught in the blaze. Could you –?"

"Yeah." Nathan was up in the sky and before she knew it, had returned miraculously with a t-shirt to cover herself. Handing it to her, he added grotesquely. "Hope you don't mind … I pulled them from a dead kid around the block. It was … the only thing I saw in your size."

Trying to ignore the disgust that lodged in her throat, Claire quickly changed and turned back to Nathan immediately. "We have to find Peter."

"Where are they?" Nathan asked urgently, scanning the landscape. Peter and Sylar were nowhere in sight.

Hiro teleported into view, his round and usually cheery face drenched in sweat and tears. "Peter?" He asked in a high-pitched voice. It was obvious to Claire that he was, like her, terrified out of his mind.

Nathan ran to Hiro, Claire racing after them. "They're gone. Look, I'm going to fly around, see where they are. The two of them … bound to be fireworks, you know?"

Without his normal translator around, Nathan was speaking too fast for Hiro's limited English. The Japanese man frowned, clearly not having understood a word Nathan had said. Impatiently, Nathan made flying gestures with his hand, indicating what he was going to do. Rolling his eyes, he even added a "whoosh" sound for Hiro's benefit.

Hiro nodded, determination stealing over his face. A second later, he teleported out of sight, leaving Nathan and Claire to stare bleakly at each other. Giving her a tiny nod in acknowledgement, Nathan soared off into the smoke-filled sky, forcing Claire to wait helplessly on the ground.

* * *

It turned out Nathan and Hiro weren't really needed to look for Peter and Sylar. As Nathan had predicted, wherever those two were, fireworks inevitably followed. 

A loud detonation filled the air and she spun around to see the source of the explosion, the shock reverberating in the ground underneath her. Squinting against the white hot heat of the smouldering furnace, she spied Peter and Sylar duelling on top of a fifty storey building that in better days would have been described as modern art deco.

Nathan did a fly by and Claire was able to scream at him. "There." She pointed eagerly, surprised when Nathan soared past her. She felt herself being lifted and soon they were flying towards Peter and Sylar.

"You're a lot lighter than Peter." Nathan joked grimly.

It only took a few seconds of Nathan's almost supersonic speed to get them to the top. Neither Peter nor Sylar seemed particularly interested in their visitors; their entire focus seemed to be on each other. Claire took one look at Sylar's face and knew they were in trouble.

Almost as soon as they touched down onto the roof, Nathan doubled over, so much so that he dropped Claire unceremoniously onto the ground, making her land hard. "Are you all right?" She asked him breathlessly, all the while observing Peter and Sylar out of the corner of her eye.

Nathan was slumped over, blisters appearing on his hands and face. The radiation Sylar – and perhaps Peter at this point – that must have been generated in their fight was effectively killing Nathan. Claire ran towards the older man and tried to help him up but he remained hunched on the ground, making gagging noises. Claire was forced to watch, wringing her hands in despair.

Sylar had a litany of bruises and scratches over his body; his chest and hands were smeared with blood. He was breathing heavily, his breath coming out in loud heaves and gasps; his shoulders slumped wearily as if he knew his life would soon be over.

In contrast, Peter looked pristine, clean and fresh, like he had been out on a morning stroll. What scared Claire the most though were Peter's eyes – usually so open and warm, it now radiated power, disdain and an almost inhuman disregard for his adversary. Seeing them like that, Claire couldn't help but feel a surge of pity for the pathetic creature that Sylar had turned into. For that was what he looked like now – a creature composed purely of hatred and instinct, hardly human at all. He had lost his humanity with the increasing consumption of other people's powers; ironically, his collection of power had rendered him less, not more than human.

Suddenly, Claire's eyes met Peter's through the smog. To her, his eyes seemed unexpectedly strange and new; it was like staring at a completely different entity that just happened to be inhabiting Peter's body. Just as they had been at Claude's apartment that morning, his eyes were no longer the clear shade of brown that she had so fondly remembered; instead they were rimmed with an angry glow, threatening to burst with red hot flame at any instant.

Sylar was gathering whatever power he had left. Breathing heavily, he lunged bodily at Peter with such force that he appeared to be flying towards him like a missile. Instead of dodging like Claire had half-expected, Peter ran into him head on, moving so fast it was like seeing a streak of blue flame tearing across the sky.

Claire held her breath, expecting a titanic crash when they finally collided in the middle, but nothing of the sort happened. When Sylar had launched himself at Peter, a deep orange glow began to emanate from him. At first Claire thought she was dreaming, but a second later she realised what she was seeing.

Sylar's body was finally breaking down from the stress of everything it had been through – his monumental fight with Peter, ingesting the powers he had forcibly taken from others on his journey of terror across the country, and now his body had had enough. He was going to explode.

Peter reacted almost inhumanly fast. Instead of crashing headlong into Sylar, Peter steadied himself just in front of the glowing figure, light and heat pulsating off him in waves. The radiation being emitted from Sylar that would have killed any other creature on the face of the planet ate away at Peter's smooth skin, but a millisecond later had regenerated from Peter being able to use Claire's healing power to full effect.

Peter took a moment to ready himself for what he needed to do, what his destiny had propelled him into doing all along. What he had already done before.

He grabbed Sylar by the scruff of the neck and threw him over the side of the building.

The efficient and cold way he pushed Sylar over the edge brought a chill to Claire's spine. She knew that it had to be done – someone, somewhere had to be the one to finally do the deed – but she grieved inwardly that it had to be Peter. How cruel destiny must have been to compel the kindest, most wonderful and caring individual that she knew into this position, compel him to take on the most unfair of responsibilities of taking another life?

Claire wanted to run, to cry, to shout and rail against the injustice. Instead, she ran to the edge of the building and came to a stop next to Peter. They both stared over the precipice, riveted on the destruction, leaning over the ledge as they had the first couple of nights on the roof of Peter's apartment building, daring each other to crane their necks furthest without falling.

Fifty storeys was high, too high. If Sylar lay on the ground, he would have been just a tiny speck of colour in the distance. Through the haze and smoke of the destruction around them, they had no clear view to the bottom. Claire took the absence of a nuclear sized explosion as confirmation that Sylar was no longer alive.

Claire's attention was drawn away when Nathan walked – stumbled really – towards them. Peter finally drew back, the haughty disdain that had coloured his features draining out of him like venom being leeched from a wound. He rushed forward to help his brother just as Nathan collapsed into his arms. "Nathan, lean on me."

Hiro materialised in front of them, struggling with his sword still strung onto his back. Claire's relief at Peter's survival was so great that the sight of Hiro struggling awkwardly with his precious sword sent her collapsing into a fit of giggles. Far from being offended, Hiro seemed to be caught by her infectious relief, giving her a wide smile in return.

Claire glanced quickly to Peter, his face now one pain, confusion. To her, it looked as if Peter was only just now waking up from a fevered nightmare; one where he had done unspeakable things, caused the ending of a life. She made a mental note to console him later when things settled down.

Peter nodded to Hiro and then promptly teleported out with Nathan. Both Claire and Hiro glanced in shocked surprise at each other, before Claire felt herself being carried through time and space by Hiro, down into the ruins below.

* * *

Unexpectedly, they reappeared on a completely different street. Hiro quickly put Claire down, glancing anxiously around to ascertain their surroundings. 

The street was eerily quiet. Whole blocks were completely emptied of all noise and people, giving the disquieting appearance of a ghost town. Here in this part of the city, the devastation that Sylar had wrought had not extended this far, buildings looked untouched and if it wasn't for the eerie silence, Claire would have been relieved to find herself so far from the destruction that they had just left behind.

The silence was so strong it was almost deafening. Hiro, who was staring as perplexed as Claire was around at the gaping emptiness, struggled to find something to say. Even the normal bustling and frenetic traffic of the city seemed frozen in time; entire streets were filled with empty vehicles left in mid-jam, as if people had been driving them one minute then disappeared into the ether the next.

"Are you doing this Hiro?" Claire asked shakily, already knowing the answer. Hiro shook is head, fear beginning to dawn on his face. She was finding it really hard to keep it all together at this point.

Claire drew a quick breath at her surroundings. Extraordinarily, they were now just outside Nathan's campaign headquarters. She had no idea how far they had travelled, but to find herself here of all places was strange and prophetic. A fragment of a memory tugged at the back of her mind but it quickly slipped away from her.

Thankfully, one block away, she spied two lone figures trudging on the sidewalk toward the nearest building. Her sigh of relief was palpable seeing Peter help Nathan regain his feet, although he had to prop his brother up against the side of the building to do so. Claire saw Peter lean in, his face earnest and anxious, concerned at seeing his brother's condition.

Claire couldn't help it then, she broke into a full run. "Peter." She shouted desperately, unfettered joy making her voice hitch. It had only just hit her that Peter had faced their collective nightmare and had survived. His apocalyptic vision of his future had been merely a dream after all. He hadn't exploded – he was still alive.

He had been making himself sick with worry the last few weeks, torturing himself endlessly with a myriad of horrible possibilities – and it had only been a dream. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the thought.

Peter whipped around at the sound of her voice, hope mixing with delight on his suddenly brightening features. His nightmare had passed, leaving radiance and light in its place.

He walked steadily towards her and with each step that closed the gap between them his entire body seemed to brighten. The darkness that had utterly cloaked him since his encounter with Sylar shed like a silken husk from his frame.

They met in the middle of the street, Hiro and Nathan looking on. Claire was breathless from her full sprint towards him and she had to pause to catch her breath. A wide, wickedly crooked smile broke on his face, his dark eyes brightening with happiness that was magnified by the experience they had all just been through. She knew his joy, his hope, his bliss at this moment was rivalled only by hers.

And then suddenly, she saw it. Even in the brightness of the sunlight now pouring down onto them, there was no mistaking it.

Peter's hands were glowing.

She could feel his eyes on hers, eyes that questioned and puzzled at her sudden change. But then a flicker of understanding crept over his features and they both knew.

Their eyes met in the midst of their torment. This couldn't be happening. Peter had defeated Sylar, he had been forced to do the one thing that would haunt him forever and he had risked everything to save the world. Would he now also pay with his own life?

Peter stared down at his hands, stunned and in shock. She knew what he was going to say even before she heard his voice. Their eyes locked painfully. "You promised." He said softly, gut wrenching heartbreak spilling from his eyes.

Claire shook her head frantically, even hysterically. She wanted to run and cry and scream and shout and do anything besides keeping her promise. "No." The cracking of her voice enough to alert Nathan and Hiro that something was wrong.

Peter stared relentlessly at her, his eyes now only sorrowful and pleading. Her's were brimming with tears, but his was dry and resigned. The only sign of his regret was in the tone when he addressed her. "Please Claire." He finally broke. "You promised."

She looked pleadingly into the face of his determination, flickering down towards his glowing hands. Even from the corner of her eyes she could see the faint blush of flame begin to spread over him, smouldering in preparation of the ultimate explosion.

She wanted to stay with him. But he had extracted the cruellest of promises from her, a promise that he was going to make her keep. "I'm sorry." She whispered brokenly, before running away from him with breakneck speed. She didn't dare turn around or stop to see whether it was happening to Peter already; one split second of hesitation and she would no longer have the courage to keep running away.

Hiro was running toward her, sensing the impending danger. In another few seconds he would be there to teleport her out of there, away from Peter. In another few seconds, she would be able to keep her promise to Peter and run away from him when it really and truly mattered.

But she couldn't do it. Even as she reached Hiro, his arm's spread wide in preparation to teleport her out, Claire somehow knew this wasn't right. She wasn't meant to be doing this despite her promise to Peter. He had saved her life when it had mattered, saved it even with the knowledge that he would most likely die, and now she knew what she had been destined to do all along.

She ran headlong at Hiro, but instead of allowing him to teleport them away, she ran past him, stripping the sword from his back. She sprinted at full speed back towards Peter, the heaviness of Hiro's sword almost like dead weight as she struggled to run with it.

Peter was now an orange husk silhouetted against what remained of the skyline. Surprisingly, Nathan had found untapped reserves of power and was standing right by Peter's side; he had obviously refused to leave his brother to the vagaries of destiny. Nathan was by Peter's side where he belonged and Claire realised with a profound certainty that so should she. It would only take another few moments to reach them, moments that seemed to drag by in an eternity.

Streaks of light and flame began to radiate from Peter, stunning Nathan and flinging him to the ground. He lay there writhing with pain, being badly burned by the inferno that was now erupting like red hot lava from Peter.

Peter's entire being was throbbing in agony, his screams of pain and anguish echoing in the vacuum of emptiness around them. But Claire knew what she had to do, knew what she must do to save Peter.

Acting purely on instinct, she gripped the sword tightly in her hands and in one swift, fluid motion, she pierced Peter through the head with it. The sword was so sharp and so finely wrought that it slipped through his brain and tissue like a knife through jello. Claire had never been the strongest girl in the pack, but the ease with which the sword was able to pierce Peter's skull astonished her.

The force of her headlong dash had sent her careening towards him, the momentum carrying her over and onto Peter as she impaled him on Hiro's sword. In the stunned silence that followed, she stared down at Peter's blank eyes, astonished at what she had done.

The answer had been there in front of her all along. Claire had lived and experienced it, but not until this moment had she known how to stop an exploding man.

The source of all their abilities was in their brain. Everyone had at some point touched on the possibility, but no one had put it all together before. Sylar's obsession with ingesting the brains of his victims, the way that Claude had taught Peter to control his power by visualising concepts in his mind, her temporary death after her brain had been pierced by a broken tree branch – it had all added up. All the extraordinary things they were able to do was caused by their genes, but their abilities were all controlled by their brains. Claire knew that Mohinder would find a more complicated way to explain it, but she was sure that she was right.

Hiro ran up to them, his mouth agape and stared at Peter's impaled body in shock. Claire looked up the shadow cast by Hiro's frame, noticing for the first time the metallic taste of Peter's blood and brain matter in her mouth. It made her want to gag, but she didn't have time to do that now.

She stood up calmly, then grasping the hilt with both hands, yanked it from Peter's head.

A few seconds later his eyes returned to consciousness and he gasped painfully, blood pouring from his nose and mouth like water from a stream. Despite her instinctive action, it was only then that Claire could breath a huge sigh of relief. Knowing that what she had done was right and actually being able to see it were two entirely different things. Claire had regenerated into life as soon as the broken tree branch had been extracted from her brain. And because Peter had already shown that he could instinctively access the powers of those he had mimicked before, she had counted on that to regenerate him too.

She knelt beside Peter, gently taking his head into her hands. She turned him sideways to stop the blood choking him; it seemed to do the trick because an instant later he was even able to smile feebly and wheeze. "Thanks."

The tears that she had been holding back now poured forth relentlessly, streaming down onto Peter who was looking up at her in undisguised awe. Dimly, she was aware of Hiro going to help Nathan still lying on the ground. But her entire world at that moment was consumed by Peter and making sure he was safe.

He was her best friend, her perfect other, her life. Their paths had collided one night in a perfect synchronicity of destiny and understanding, changing her life forever. Peter Petrelli was her world, and she had just saved it.

_Author's Notes: Phew, that was one long chapter! I thought about posting it in two different parts, but it didn't really make sense to do that (hence the mega-part). Once again, thanks for all the thoughtful and kind reviews I've gotten for this story; I really wouldn't have felt so motivated to continue writing without them! _


	19. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen**

"**Aftermath"**

The first thing Peter was aware of when he regained consciousness was the soft beeping of the monitor next to his bed. The sound was gentle, carrying him blissfully from the depths of slumber to the world of the living.

He took a few steadying breaths, aware of his cool surrounds. The muted, hushed sounds of medical personnel going about their business let him know that he had somehow ended up at a hospital; he'd worked in enough places like this one to instinctively know where he was.

That was a miracle in itself. The last thing he could remember from the haze in his mind was the burning sensation that rippled from his core, the pain throbbing through his veins as if driven by a sledgehammer. His last moments had been spent in unspeakable realisation that he was going to explode and reduce his beloved city to ashes.

The next thing he was aware of and a much more pleasant discovery, were the warm hands that tightly encased his own. He smiled weakly, knowing even without looking who those tiny hands belonged to. Only she could had such smooth, perfect skin. Only she could have managed to convey such tender care by merely brushing her skin against his own; only she could have imbued him with so much peace and tranquillity just by being there.

Peter slowly opened his eyes and was greeted back into the world by Claire's glorious, shining blue ones. "Hey." She whispered softly, smiling tiredly at him. If she was aware that silent tears of relief were streaming down her face, she gave no heed to them. Her eyes were fixed solely and only on him.

His smile reflected hers. He blinked rapidly, getting used to the sensation again. He tried to speak but the tubing lodged in his throat prevented his larynx from forming the words he so desperately wanted to say.

Claire sensed his discomfort and pressed the button for the nurse. It was only after his tubing had been removed did Peter finally manage to rasp. "Thank you."

She shook her head, a shower of golden rain dislodging from her shoulder. He had always liked the way she wore her hair, swept over to one side like an imperial princess. It was funny that he hadn't allowed himself to see that before now. "What for?"

"You know." He half-croaked, half-whispered. For everything. For refusing to leave him when it mattered most, for refusing to give up on him. For being his friend and saviour, for being his hero. "You're my hero." He gasped, managing peculiarly to smile and cough at the same time.

He smiled as she turned a pleasant, deep shade of red. Even in the midst of all the tension and drama, she obviously still found it difficult to accept the incredible courage and determination that she was capable of. Peter had not been wantonly misusing the word; he truly was in awe of what she had done. Although he still had no clear memory of what exactly had transpired, he felt safe to assume that he was here breathing, albeit painfully, only because of her.

Claire Bennet was his hero.

She suddenly jumped out of the chair, rushing out of the room. "Oh my gosh, I have to tell your mom. She's been so worried. And the doctors? They'll want to see you now that you're awake." With that she ran out, reappearing with his mother and doctor a few moments later.

After he had been poked and prodded by the fascinated doctor – who cautiously pronounced his recovery as a scientific miracle – Peter was free to face his mother.

His reunion with her was heartfelt, teary and – dare he say it – genuinely touching. Peter had always loved his mother to distraction; unlike his father who he had found remote and off-putting, his mother had always been there for him. Despite their money and life of privilege, she had always done the thousand little things that mothers all over the world did for their sons – she had held him after his nightmares, stayed with him when he was sick, fussed and cried over him on the day he had moved out of home.

His mother gave him a tight but careful hug. "My baby." She whispered, planting kisses on his cheek. Despite his recent close shave with death, seeing Claire snigger slightly in the corner of his vision was just the wrong side of embarrassing. He gently pushed his fervent mother away.

What was the right thing to say in a situation like this? He had just regained consciousness from yet another confinement in the hospital and this was, embarrassingly enough, his third stay in as many months. Perhaps when Peter had any spare time left from running around trying to get himself killed, he could write a book on the etiquette to adopt when confronting loved ones after life and death situations. He'd certainly had enough experience with them in the past few days.

But he was saved the trouble of thinking up small talk with his mother. Before he could react, the concern had melted, leaving only an angry glint. "Don't you ever do that to me ever again Peter!" She hissed, motherly compassion quickly giving way to venom. "You have no idea what I've been through the last few months weeks. First you have a suicide attempt, then you're in a coma and now this? I'm so angry I could kill you."

Peter gulped. He flicked a quick glance at Claire but she studiously avoided his gaze. Perhaps Peter was just being paranoid after all that he had been through, but he thought there was a hint of amusement in her eyes. "I'm sorry Mom. I … won't do it again?" He was back to having absolutely no idea what to say.

"Well." Thankfully, his mother softened, brushing his bangs fondly from his face. She had always been an emotional whirlwind. "As long as you don't, I'll forgive you. Now." She sat lightly at the edge of the bed while continuing to brush back his hair. "Tell me what's been going on with you and Nathan. Don't try to deny it Peter, you're a terrible liar, you always were. Besides, a mother can tell these things."

Peter's head was aching, his lungs were burning from lack of proper use and he was aching to find out just how he had managed to survive against all odds. But he couldn't deny his mother's share of the truth now that he was able to see the desperate love and care in her face.

"Do you want me give you two a moment, Mrs Petrelli?" Claire asked timidly, already beginning to side step out of the room.

His mom turned around, giving Claire a teary smile. "Thank you dear. And this is the last time I'm telling you, please call me Angela." Claire gave her a shy smile in return and smoothly exited the room.

Peter bit his lip, at a loss where to start. In the end, he settled for the simple truth. "I can mimic people with special abilities. Like – I can paint the future, fly, teleport, heal really quickly. Whoever I come in contact with. A friend of mine, Mohinder, he thinks … he thinks it's because my power is empathy. I can feel or empathise with others. And Nathan can fly." He added almost as an afterthought.

It may have been wishful thinking on Peter's part, but she seemed surprisingly non-plussed by his startling revelation. She murmured deeply, tracing the contour of his cheek fondly. "Well, you were always a little too sensitive for a non-gay." She said dryly. "So it explains a lot of things."

"Like what?" Peter asked curiously. Never would he have imagined how well his mother would take this. If he knew she was going to be so calm about it, he might have broached the subject with her sooner.

She sighed, as if relieving herself of a burden she had carried for a long time. "You always had a special knack of knowing exactly the right thing to say or do, with everyone. It was uncanny, the way you were able to do it. Your father … I don't know whether you remember it, but when you were younger you used to – sense – when your father was down. You just knew it, and you would go to him and ask whether he was okay. You'd give him a hug or a kiss and it would … it would make him feel better."

"No, I don't." Peter said with wonder in his eyes. He had no memory of doing that at all.

"Well." His mother blinked rapidly, saying enigmatically. "Just as well."

She soon had to leave to check on Nathan who was now in the ICU. Peter, similarly anxious over his brother's health, was more than welcome to let his mother go at that point. His conversation with her had drained him a lot more than he had thought and he was now anxious to glean the details of how he had survived from Claire.

Claire came in just as Peter's mother was leaving. It only struck him as they passed each other that they must have already talked in the days waiting for news. The thought made him even more curious on what he had missed out on.

Artlessly, as if she did it every day, she carefully laid on the bed beside him, snuggling gently against his frame. Peter shifted slightly to make room for her, enjoying their natural intimacy.

They remained silent for a while, luxuriating in the warmth and comfort from each other. Peter couldn't really tell precisely what was going through Claire's mind, but if it was anything like what he was feeling, it would have been savouring the sweet sensation of just being able to enjoy this moment. Of realising that they were both alive and relatively well and that he hadn't needed to die after all.

Claire broke the crystalline silence. "Do you remember what I did?" She whispered.

Her words jolted Peter back to the tortuous, throbbing pain that had racked him as he had heated up, the blinding rush of heat searing his flesh from the inside out. He hadn't remembered much after that. "I had to kill you Peter." Claire stated quietly, uncertain of his reaction. "I had to kill you to save the world." Her voice broke in agony. "I'm so sorry."

Her confession had made her look so forlorn and broken, Peter didn't know what to say. If he was understanding her correctly – and he thought he was – Claire had had to kill him to stop him from exploding. How she had done so _and _saved his life was a complete mystery, something he planned on exploring for a long time afterwards.

As if reading his mind, she continued blindly. "I took Hiro's sword and stabbed you through the – the brain with it. It was the only way to stop it. The … everything we can do comes from our brain. I just thought, if I stopped it, it'd be like rebooting a computer or something. I'm so sorry."

Her shattered expression made him grasp just how much she had done for him and the world. He had to somehow make her understand that what she did had been precisely the right thing, no matter how horrible an act of betrayal it seemed to her. "You have nothing to be sorry for." He whispered, gently brushing her locks with his free hand. She squeezed her eyes shut, a single tear escaping to course down her cheek. "Hey." He tilted her face up to his, saying with as much emotion as he could. "You did the right thing. Hiro went back in time to tell me that I had to save you, because only you could have done what you did. I … don't know all the details, and I'd like to know sometime, but … Claire, you have to realise you saved the world. _You_. You're the hero."

He wiped the tear off her face with his thumb as she smiled through her distress. "I know. But it was just so horrible. I had to … stick that sword into you. And I didn't even know whether it'd work. What if I was wrong? I would've killed you for real."

"You wouldn't have." Peter chided her gently. "You knew exactly what you had to do, because you were destined to do it. I think that's how these sorts of things work. You do things you're supposed to do."

"Are you okay though?" She asked urgently, examining him with her eyes. "Do you feel okay?"

After all they had been through, he found that he couldn't lie to her. "I'm … not exactly at a hundred percent yet." Even as he was saying it, the nausea in his stomach settled and the racking cough that always seemed at the edge of his throat ceased to irritate him. Although he still felt the searing headache pulsating at the base of his skull and his limbs ached like there was no tomorrow, he felt comparably better than he had when he had first woken up. Just as it had when Claire had appeared on his doorstep a week ago, her presence had improved his condition exponentially. "I'm not sure whether I _can _be okay. I absorbed a lot … especially from Sylar. I'm not sure that a human body's made to do that."

"Do you think your almost-explosion was enough to 'reset' your brain?" She murmured thoughtfully. "Like stop you from accessing all the powers you absorbed from everyone?"

"Maybe, I don't know." Peter laughed playfully. "What's with all the computer speak? I didn't know you were such a geek."

"I'm not." She protested automatically before simmering down again. "Zach was the computer nerd. He used to compare me to a hard drive that kept rebooting or something."

After that, she began to recount to him everything that had happened in the last few days.

Claire had haunted the hospital in the days following their final confrontation with Sylar, going from bed to bed visiting everyone who had helped in Sylar's defeat.

Her father – someone who Peter still didn't trust despite how he had aided them – was one of the more seriously hurt. Along with Niki, they remained unconscious in the intensive care unit, monitored day and night by the highly trained doctors and nurses that were being overworked with the amount of casualties that had come in as a result of the havoc that still gripped the city.

To the rest of the world, New York had been subject to a series of attacks. The mastermind behind the attacks was pinpointed as Gabriel Grey, a watchmaker whose last known address was Queens. As far as the authorities were concerned, he was just a lone terrorist that acted on his own volition and wasn't part of any conspiracy against the American public. The case seemed relatively clear cut; the blame lay fairly and squarely on Sylar. But Peter and Claire, and the everyone that knew the truth, knew better.

Hiro alone had been able to walk with Claire into the hospital that first day to visit their friends. Mohinder had later arrived with Ando driving a yellow cab, parked illegally on the corner. They had sombrely informed Claire and Hiro that Isaac had not been up to visiting anyone; his grief over Simone was such that seeing another one of his friends fighting for their life would have tipped him irrevocably over the edge.

Audrey had sustained serious, though not fatal, injuries. She had already been undergoing surgery by the time Claire had wearily dragged herself through the hospital doors. Claire had then been lent yet another fresh change of clothes, this time by a kindly nurse who had taken one look at her bedraggled state and promptly deposited a fresh pair of scrubs onto her lap.

Matt had sat patiently with all of them too, occasionally pacing anxiously up and down the hall. During Audrey's surgery he had been unusually jumpy, forever standing up and offering to get coffee and snacks for everyone. Finally, after eight marathon hours, the surgeon had pronounced Audrey to be out of the woods. Her prognosis was good although her recovery would be lengthy.

Peter glanced down at Claire's golden head, eyes attentive. A faraway look was in her eyes and she was absently chewing on a strand of hair. "Do you think they like each other?"

Peter frowned, puzzled. "What, Matt and Audrey?"

She made a non-committal sound. "I know he's married – well, technically – but they seem, you know. Close." She giggled, burrowing her face in his shoulder. "Like us."

If she noticed the effect of her candid statement on him, she didn't betray it. Despite himself, his heart skipped a beat, enjoying the fact that she could so openly say something like that. But then again, going through multiple life-threatening events – and dying together a few times – tended to have that effect on people.

She then told him how she had met his mother. During what turned out to be quite a long stay at the hospital for the Petrellis, Claire had met her as well as Nathan's wife Heidi and their two boys the first day after the brothers had been admitted.

Things had been grim for the Petrelli clan in the first few days of their vigil. Nathan had suffered serious injury, including burns to a good half of his body. His refusal to leave Peter in the dying seconds of his near explosion had exposed him to dangerous levels of radiation; Claire told him soberly that for a few hours, Nathan's life had genuinely hung in the balance. Ironically, Nathan had won his election by a good three point margin that day and he still didn't know he was New York's newest Congressman.

Peter himself had also been a big source of anxiety for his mother. However, despite the extent of his injuries when he had first been admitted, he was actually one of the first ones to exhibit signs of recovery. Claire had continually hovered near him, heedless of the curious stares that were thrown her way by anyone and everyone in the vicinity. "I didn't care what they thought. All I wanted to know was that you were going to be okay." She said.

But one curious stare she couldn't ignore was his mother's. She had approached Claire on the second day by Peter's bedside. She had pulled up a chair and introduced herself, engaging Claire in easy small talk. Claire had been distracted, tired and fatigued and was grateful for the company. "I think she kinda took pity on me or something. I was so tired … I told her everything. Like how you rescued me, what happened in Odessa, all the crazy things that happened in the past few days … about Sylar. Peter, she didn't seem surprised at all. It was like she was half-expecting it or something."

Peter was surprised to hear _that_. As far as he was concerned, his mother was an accomplished socialite and now society matron; nothing out of the ordinary would have been permitted to exist in her world. But to hear that she had taken all his craziness in her stride – that was a revelation he hadn't counted on.

The Petrelli's had also taken in Micah while Niki and DL remained incapacitated. "Heidi took one look at him and decided they had to look after him while Niki and DL were in the hospital." Claire noted, admiration in her eyes. "She was so nice. It's hard to believe, well –"

"That she could have married by brother? I think the same thing all the time."

Micah Sanders had become fast friends with Nathan two boys, the precocious child becoming the natural leader in their triumvirate of evil. "I'm not sure what's going to happen when DL gets out. He woke up a couple days ago; the doctors say he might be well enough next week. We've been wheeling him in and out of Niki's room every day." A troubled look crossed Claire's eyes. "I'm worried about one thing. They never found Sylar's body."

Even hearing his name was enough to set Peter's heart racing, and not in a good way. "What do you mean?"

"Well, after … everything, Hiro and Mohinder thought they could try to make sure. You know, that he was dead. But they couldn't find anything … it was like he'd vanished into thin air. But Peter –" She hurried on, anxious to get his opinion. "He couldn't have survived that fall, could he? It was a fifty storey building. Even he couldn't have survived that. Could he?"

It didn't sound plausible. But the absence of the body made it at least a remote possibility. "I don't think we can worry about that now." Peter said quietly, giving Claire a reassuring squeeze. "If he's not dead … well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." To cheer them both up, he gave her ribs a friendly poke, close enough to her tickle zone to make her squeal in surprise.

It was the first laugh he'd heard from her since he had regained consciousness. It was a happy, tinkling sound, full of mirth and vitality. He liked hearing it – in fact, he could admit to himself now that he liked a lot of things about Claire Bennet.

Her smile fell off her face though as she became transfixed by something on his chest. Her serious expression goaded him to ask with some degree of concern. "What?"

"Peter …" Her voice trailed off, her hands fingering his bare chest. She pulled the thin hospital gown further down, exposing more of his skin to the cool air. Even from his awkward vantage point, what was on his chest was unmistakeable.

There was a giant, angry red scar that ran the length of his torso, starting from just below his collarbone to end on his lower abdomen. The incredible vividness of it, its depth and the way it discoloured the skin around it, stunned both of them. Peter had never been a vain person, but he had to admit that he had liked the way he had grown into his own appearance the last few years. Far from being the scrawny, weird looking kid in his class, he had grown into a tolerable looking person. But this – the way the scar zig-zagged over his previously smooth skin in a "S" shape, stunned him in its abruptness.

It also jolted him and made him realise how close he'd come to face his own mortality. There was surely no doubt that the scar was a vestige of his near-death, a lasting reminder of just how close he had come to losing everything. And having Claire be with him now emphasised just how lucky Peter was.

"It's … very big." Peter noted dryly. Recalling his first strange encounter with Hiro – Hiro from the future that was – and what he had said about his scar, Peter reflected that having it on his chest wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It could have been worse – it could have been on his face.

Claire gingerly traced it down his chest with her finger. "Does it hurt?" She asked curiously.

"No." A smile crept onto Peter's features. He was actually enjoying the sensation of having her hands running over his bare chest. "But it sure tickles."

She was momentarily stunned, before bursting into a fit of uncontrollable giggling.

* * *

The second time Peter spoke to his mom, she started off the conversation with a surprising twist. "Peter, Claire's going to be living with us."

"What?" If he hadn't been in a sitting position, he would have had to sit down. "Why?" He demanded.

"Because she's still 17 years old, and it would be improper of her to be living with a 26 year old man in an apartment." He must have looked like he was about to object because she rushed on imperiously. "I've talked to her father about it now that he's woken up. He's going to be letting her stay in New York with us. She has to finish school, Peter. She has to have someone to look after her. I'm not sure … You know you're my favourite, darling, and I can't deny you anything. But I'm going to have to deny you this."

"But you can't do that." Peter was almost feeling physical pain just thinking about Claire being away from him.

"Darling." She bent down to place a tender peck on his forehead. "Please be reasonable. I'm not trying to be a stuffy society matron, but can't you see she needs to do the rest of her growing up with a family nearby? Nathan and Heidi can give her that, you can't." Off his devastated look, she smiled kindly. "This doesn't mean you won't get to see her. In fact, see her as often as you want. It just means you'll have to visit us more often." She gave him a knowing wink, understanding dawning on Peter's face. He had been scared that his mother – and probably Nathan, Peter wouldn't put it past him – would try to prevent Peter from even seeing Claire, but it wasn't going to be like that at all. Sure it would mean that he would have to put up with more of his family that he would otherwise wish to, but that was going to be small price to pay.

"Are you sure, Mom?" Peter found himself asking quietly, wondrously. "I thought you've always said that two children were more than enough for you. Claire's … she's fiery. And different." Peter smiled fondly as he recalled images of their short time together. "She can be a handful."

"Of course she can dear, we've had long chats over the past few days about that." His mother stood up slowly, straightening the sheets on the spot that she had sat on. "I may have said two children were enough, but they were boys." She looked down at Peter fondly. "My boys were always getting into little scrapes and adventures, making their mother's life a living terror. But I've always wanted a girl, and I think I'd like that very much. Claire's a dear, and I think she and I will get along fine." With that, she gave him another kiss on the check, letting herself out the door.

Peter leaned back onto the bed, staring up at the spectacularly dull, pastel white ceiling. His enforced convalescence didn't seem so tedious after all, if he had a future with Claire to look forward to.


	20. Epilogue

"**Epilogue"**

Claire was reclining lazily in the rec room of the Petrelli mansion the first weekend after Nathan was finally discharged from hospital. Her lithe frame was spread haphazardly over the length of the plush couch, the feel of soft leather soothing against her tired muscles. She had been making full use of the gym that the Petrellis had installed specifically for Heidi's rehabilitation, a gym that Heidi had made a point to Claire that she was more than welcome to use to her heart's content.

She figured now that she was indestructible, a lot could be gained if she could train herself to do something more useful with it. The encounter with Sylar had taught her that it wasn't enough to be a passive bystander in ultimate battles to save the world; she had to be proactive and throw herself in the fray to be of real help to anyone.

Who was she lying to – she was, of course, talking about helping Peter.

As if her thoughts had conjured him up from thin air, she heard soft footsteps behind her as Peter padded quietly into the room. She was feeling too relaxed at the moment to peer over the top of the couch to confirm her suspicions, but she knew it was him even without looking. Talking about developing freaky abilities.

"Where is everyone?" Peter asked quietly as he rounded into view, looking curiously at her lounging on the couch. "You look comfortable." He added dryly, nodding pointedly at the bag of potato chips balanced precariously on her stomach.

She offered him some, which he accepted. She scooted over to make room for him next to her. "Your mom's walking with Nathan in the garden, and Heidi and the boys are upstairs doing something." Claire snatched the chips away from him, feigning a haughty expression. "And yes, I am comfortable thank you very much."

Since Peter had returned from his extended sojourn with Claude in the Nevada desert, she had seen him most days during the week. Claude had snuck into Peter's room one day not long after he had awoken and had promptly convinced him to take a month long "retreat" in order to mentally recover and fully harness and control his abilities. Ever the charmer, Peter had made hurried calls to both Claire and his mother letting them know of his intentions and that he would be uncontactable in the next month or so.

Predictably, both Claire and his mother had been absolutely furious at Peter's audacity and abject stupidity. His mother had declared she was going to disown and then kill Peter with her bare hands; Claire had even sworn to never speak to Peter Petrelli again even if he came back to her crawling on his hands and knees.

It turned out it hadn't needed to come to that. Instead, it had taken an entire week of Peter bringing Claire peace offerings in order to coax her to even be in the same vicinity as him, let alone deign to speak to him again. But after several litres of cookies and cream ice cream, a bracelet and unsurprisingly, a choice sample of cute teddy bears from around the world, she had relented and they were back on the comfortable speaking terms they were on before.

Due to Nathan's incapacity from his near brush with death – a near brush that Peter felt he was in some way responsible for – he had announced to his brother that he was going to help his office out for as long as he was needed. His natural empathy for other people's thoughts and feelings, as well as his actual other abilities – made him a valuable asset to his brother's political dealings while Nathan regained full health. Nathan had been grateful and Peter's mother had been pleased. They were all now, if not one big happy family, close enough for Peter's satisfaction.

Claire at first had been unused to seeing Peter dressed up in a suit, his shirt pristinely pressed, his ties always teamed with matching cufflinks. When he was dressed up like that, he looked much more like his brother and a Petrelli. His mother had joked that her little boy had finally grown up. "Sure Mom. I'm 26 years old and I've finally grown up."

Privately, Claire thought the change wasn't for the better. She liked Peter better when he had been a caring and natural spirit, but since he was only doing it to help out his family, she decided to keep her opinion to herself.

She had since gotten used to seeing Peter in a suit, and when he yanked his tie off after breathing a long sigh of relief, he seemed much more like the person she knew. "Long day?" She asked sympathetically.

He winced. "Something like that." Looking down at his outfit, he gave an exaggerated groan. "I hate these things. Makes me feel like a penguin."

Claire giggled, looking down at the finely tailored pants and the way the jacket had been contoured to match Peter's body. Even though he didn't really look like Peter as she had first known him, she had to admit that he looked, well, good. "You're a very well dressed penguin then."

He smiled at her light teasing. "I'm going to go up and change."

After he had changed into a comfortable jeans and t-shirt ensemble, Peter found Claire in her room at the Petrelli house, which was situated in a bright, sunlight corner of the upper floor overlooking the rose garden. Claire was still getting used to the fact that Peter's family home was big enough to have different sorts of gardens scattered across its luscious grounds and for those gardens to actually have names.

She was staring intently at her cheerleading uniform, no longer pristine with the repeated rinsing and washing out of dried blood. Her blood. Sensing Peter come into the room, she said quietly without turning. "It's silly. I'm not sure why I even brought it. I should've just thrown it out."

He walked up slowly to stand beside her. "Same reason why you brought Mr Teddy here." Peter gestured towards her most trusting companion, a brown teddy bear with a pink bow looking desperately forlorn and worst for wear after 14 years spent by Claire's side. For a second she thought he might have been teasing her, but when she looked up at him she was satisfied to note there was no trace of a smile on his handsome face. Good, she had not made herself look too ridiculous in Peter's eyes.

"I know." She sighed, packing the uniform away in the chest of drawers by her bed. "I'm having a hard time putting it away." She confessed. "But I guess it's time to move on. Can't be a cheerleader for ever." She smiled tightly.

Peter looked down at her with piercing, serious eyes. "No, you can't. And you shouldn't want you. You're not just the cheerleader, you're Claire. You're a hero."

"Are you going to be calling me that from now on?" Claire retorted cheekily. "Cause I kind of like it."

Peter flicked her hair playfully, grinning at her annoyed expression. "If you save the world again, maybe I'll think about it."

* * *

Peter suggested a stroll through the gardens while they waited for dinner to be served. Although it was now early winter, the late evening was unseasonably mild enough for a walk outside to be refreshing. Claire agreed, knowing how much Peter hated being stuck inside a stuffy office for most of the day.

"Are you liking it here?" Peter asked her with a serious expression as he guided her to a bench situated in the middle of the garden. The roses were mostly dormant, but enough remained to surround them with their sweet, pungent aroma. "I mean, with my family? I know my mom can come off a little strong. And she's got a temper."

Claire shook her head, looking out into the distance. "Yeah , I am. Your mom's been really nice actually. Heidi too. And the boys are really cute, I play with them sometimes." Her eyes became wistful. "They make me miss my mom and brother a little less. Makes me feel less alone in the world."

Peter looked down at her solemnly, his emotions spilling from his gaze plain for her to see. Spinning her gently to face him, he looked deeply into her eyes. "You're not alone Claire. You'll never be alone again while I'm alive."

Claire looked back at him, gratitude flowing from her brilliant blue eyes.

It was now dusk, the sun drifting inexorably down the Manhattan skyline. They walked to the edge of the garden and looked over the edge of the balcony, staring out into the impressive vista in comfortable silence. After the close brush with death with his mortality, Peter would no doubt still be revelling in his survival.

"Peter, why did you kiss me?" Claire asked suddenly, trying to keep her voice sedate. It was something that had been plaguing her ever since Peter's recovery, but she never seemed to have found the right time to bring it up with him. The last weeks while she had settled into her new home had been happy ones, and Peter had obviously made a great deal of effort to visit her while she was staying at his family home. They had fallen into a comfortable pattern with Peter dropping by on his way home after work to have dinner with his family and on weekends even staying the night in his old room, but to Claire, the biggest question of all hung suspended precariously between them.

That brought his contentment of the moment up short. He was clearly taken by surprise by her directness, looking up at him with uncertainty in her crystal clear eyes. But instead of feigning incomprehension at her loaded question, he opted for honesty. "It felt right." He stated simply. Peter tore his eyes from the blissful scenery to gaze down at her.

The eyes that met hers were a mixture of confusion, delight and restraint. It was obvious that he knew he was in ambiguous territory and he was making an effort to choose his next words carefully. "Claire, we can't be doing this. Not now." Off her crushed look of protest, he continued gently. "We both know … how we feel. But it wouldn't be fair for you. You have to be free to discover new things, do the rest of your growing up."

"I think I've been through enough to have earned the right to choose how to express my feelings." Clare retorted a little resentfully. "I'm old enough to make my own decisions Peter. That's why my Dad finally let me stay in New York. If he could accept it, why can't you?"

"It'd be different between us, you know it'd be." She hated that he sounded so rational. She knew that he only had her welfare in mind, but she hated that it made so much sense to her. "I'm 26 Claire, you're 17. There's nothing wrong with the way we feel. But … you still need to finish high school. I graduated from nursing school six months ago. We're worlds apart at the moment and if we started anything right now – if I allowed something to happen – it wouldn't end well."

"How could you know that?" Claire was desperately hanging onto every shred of logic she could conjure up. At the back of her mind she had always known this had been a possibility, but she just couldn't believe he could be so rational, so detached from all of this – especially with everything they had been through.

"Claire." He closed the distance between them then, leaning down to press his forehead against hers. "You have to know how I feel. But I don't want to take the chance and start something that wouldn't end well. If –", Here he corrected himself. "_When _we start something, I want it to last. I want you to feel safe and certain about everything. Right now – don't you see, things are still so confused for you, I don't need to add to that." Off her slight whimper, he whispered softly. "Good things come to those who wait. We should wait."

"Peter, I –" Claire understood everything he was saying and he was right – it did make perfect sense. She was aware that he must have been making a tremendous sacrifice restraining himself about this, but she couldn't hide the streak of pain that now coursed through every sinew of her body. This was real torture – knowing how he felt about her, feeling their closeness, and yet they couldn't be together, not yet.

But at least they were alive to look forward to a new future.

Peter gave her a chaste kiss, gently taking her hand in his. They stood quietly in companionable silence as dusky sunlight melted into night, until Peter's mom impatiently called them to dinner.

**Finis**

_Author's Note: Okay, that's it for now. I know I've said this before but I totally need to say it again. Thanks to all the lovely, kind, thoughtful and wonderful feedback I've gotten for this story. Seriously, if you guys weren't so encouraging I would never have gotten this finished. _

_As it is, you guys have inspired me. To those that asked whether I was planning a sequel, the answer is a resounding Yes. I've mapped out the basic plot and started writing the first chapters, so hopefully fingers crossed I'll be able to post it in about 2 weeks time._

_Thanks! _

_Viv _

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